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2020-08-16: Campaign text messages

So it's election season again here in the States, which means political ads are everywhere. I've accepted that it's a given that they'll be on TV and websites and so on. I know that I'll get near-daily spam and physical junk mail asking for my vote. (And like most other junk mail, I'll let it sit for a few days before chucking it in the trash.)

The one that really irritates me, though, is the campaign text message. I'm the sort of person who has been conditioned to respond to notifications immediately, so I rarely have unread emails or text messages for any period of time. And I find it particularly grating to be interrupted throughout the day by "Hi, I'm a volunteer with $CANDIDATE, who is running against $OTHER_CANDIDATE, $CANDIDATE is fighting for you and is definitely the best choice, would you please vote for her?"

In theory, I support this sort of thing. I think that getting out the vote is important. Especially this year, and especially in light of the current administration's horrendous sabotage of the US postal service just as it's becoming critical for nationwide voting-by-mail during the pandemic. If campaigns are going to get people to vote for their candidates, they'll have to do outreach, and I suppose a text message is more environmentally friendly than physical junk mail and safer than in-person door-to-door canvassing during a pandemic.

And yet... there's just something about "vote for my candidate" text messages that feels particularly intrusive.

So, I have a new policy. When I receive one of these messages, whoever the candidate is -- whether I'm 100% behind her, or opposed, or whatever -- I respond to the text with approximately the following: "Thank you for your text. I had been planning to vote for $CANDIDATE, but because your campaign is sending me unsolicited texts, I'm going to be taking another look at $OTHER_CANDIDATE instead."

I know I could just ignore it and not respond. But unless campaigns are getting feedback that their actions are not only not helpful, but are actively harmful to their candidate's votes, they'll keep doing it.

And if nothing else, hopefully I'm making my way onto whatever "do-not-text" lists these campaigns might share with one another...

</needlessly grumpy rant>