What to do about a political candidate's minions who keep phoning me?

April 29, 2023 8:29 AM

I have somehow ended up on the list of an obnoxious political candidate in a state and district I have not resided in for 25 years and whose political positions are anathema to me in every way. Every election cycle, her people text and call me asking for my support, and I dutifully tell them to get me the hell off her list. But...they don't. What now?

I guess my questions are a few related ones:
1. HOW can I get off this person's list if they keep ignoring my requests? I hate everything she stands for and I dislike being reminded every 2 years that she keeps managing to get re-elected to do more harm in the world.

2. Could I, like, somehow monetize this refusal to honor my repeated requests? Or make it a minor pain in her ass in some way? (And does it make a difference that the texts and calls are always from different - what I assume are - volunteers' phone numbers every time? It's not like a telemarketer calling from the same company with the same phone number.)

3. Barring #1 and #2, how do I make this the most fun for me and the most annoying, albeit indirectly, for her? I haven't put much effort into it, but generally my responses so far are along the lines of "oh, thanks so much for telling me about the evil communist who's running against her. I almost forgot to vote for him, but I will be sure to show up now!" Not that mature and also not that clever. I feel like with some effort I could make this a lot more amusing for myself.

posted by catesbie to Grab Bag (15 answers total)

last I knew, political campaigns are not subject to spam calling rules. I'd start my response by saying you're not in her district, so having you in their database is wasting everybody's time. Then I'd do a little prepared speech about why she's so wretched, and recommend they stop working for her.

If you a prepaid return envelope when they ask for $, stuff it and send it back; it'll cost something.

Some candidates don't have many volunteers, but do pay people to call, hand write cards, knock on doors, etc. if that influences your response. Don't be shitty to someone who needs a job that badly, but tell to get more honest work.
posted by theora55 at 8:46 AM on April 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

Are they calling your cell phone? That is not allowed without your consent according to the FCC's page about political campaigns. It doesn't matter if they are manually dialing or robocalling. Manual texts are allowed to be sent to cell phones. There is information on what to do on that linked page.

If this was me, I would not rely on telling a random volunteer to remove you from the list. I would send the main campaign a certified letter with your information and telling them to remove you, including the fact that your number is a cell phone and citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. If the call is not from the campaign but from the generic party, ask the caller how to get removed from that list as well. I would do this now before the main campaign season gets started.
posted by soelo at 8:47 AM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

soelo, those rules do only apply if the candidate or volunteers are using an automated dialer and/or have a pre-recorded message. Political campaigns or volunteers can legally "phone bank" as much as they please, having staff or volunteers manually dial prospective voters by hand to have a live discussion of the candidate, even if the call recipient is using a cell phone. Note that the practice is not listed as prohibited on the page you linked to.

catesbie, what has worked for me is to calmly say that I will not vote for their candidate under any circumstances if I ever receive a call or text from their campaign again, so it is essential for the volunteer to speak with those in charge to successfully remove my number from their lists if they truly want any chance of my vote in the future.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 8:57 AM on April 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

Pick a topic (medical ones should work well, eg morning constipation, really itchy ringworm). Start a stopwatch on your phone. Your challenge is to keep them on the phone while you talk about that topic as long as possible.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 9:08 AM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

It probably won't help prevent calls, but if you want momentary satisfaction, just tell the caller "Can you hold on a minute? I'll be right back" and then put them on hold until they give up and hang up. (This is the low-effort way of getting them to waste their time unfruitfully.)
posted by trig at 9:09 AM on April 29, 2023 [7 favorites]

This sounds obvious, but have you tried telling them you don't live in the district? This succeeded in stopping texts from districts I no longer live in (granted, the most recent was in Texas, which I assume is enthusiastic about "updating" voter rolls, but it did stop Minnesota too). I've done text banking and the software has options for "no longer in district" and "STOP" (which is required for texts, but possibly not phone calls, I'm not sure). Giving a response that matches an option very closely makes it more likely that the volunteer will actually record the information.

Of course, given that it sounds like it's a single candidate, it's possible that they're just incompetent and like wasting volunteers' time.
posted by hoyland at 9:26 AM on April 29, 2023

No guarantee that this will work but tell the person on the line that a) you no longer live in the district, b) you keep getting calls, c) starting now, every time you get a call from this campaign you will donate (however much you can reasonably afford) to a cause that you support but that the candidate in question definitely does not. That may help motivate them to get you off the list when nothing else has helped. Good luck!
posted by sencha at 10:08 AM on April 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

Sencha beat me to the punch but, if you have any number of followers on Twitter, you could also ask them to do likewise each time, being sure to tag the candidate/campaign.
posted by kate4914 at 10:49 AM on April 29, 2023

25 years! Stop telling the powerless callers to remove you from the list, and contact the politician's office directly. Via letter, as above, but you might also tweet @ them, something along the lines of: How do I remove myself from your call and text list? I'm not eligible to vote in your election. Your volunteers are incredibly persistent, and thoroughly wasting their & my time.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:02 AM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you all so much! These are all excellent suggestions covering the whole spectrum of practical to petty, and I may employ them all depending on mood. (For the record, this person's people have not been hassling me for a full 25 years - somehow they got my number a few years ago and have been calling me up and texting me the last few election cycles despite any number of reminders that they are wasting their time.)
posted by catesbie at 12:03 PM on April 29, 2023

In my experience it is impossible to get removed from political lists; I have never managed to do it. Once you get on a donation list, that email gets copied and sold repeatedly; getting off one list isn't enough, and it seems impossible to hunt down all copies.

Before the 2012 election, I created a google account with google voice phone number and used that to make donations to keep the political spam separate from personal mail. For one donation I made, I didn't notice my web browser accidentally filled the form with my real number and email address. Since then I regularly receive emails and texts for candidates at that number and email - not often, maybe 1-2 times a month, but it has been going on a long time now despite all my efforts to stop it.

Here is what I have tried:
- Unsubscribing from every email
- Replying STOP to every text
- Asking to be put on their do not call list for every phone call and for them to not share my information.
- Marking emails and texts as spam where possible
- Calling/texting/emailing campaigns and asking to have my email and number removed
- Calling the campaign to ask where they got my information so I could try and track it back; they wouldn't tell me
- I saw a newspaper article about the major political consulting company that sold and rented these lists. I managed to google them; find a tech support number, and call them. They said they would remove me from all their messaging. This slowed it down but did not stop.

At this point I am assuming it will never, ever stop and I will die and 800 years from now someone will get my number and they will get political messages on it.

Edit: I wrote 2008 initially, but I logged on and looked it it was 2012 I created the account. This doesn't increase my amount of hope.
posted by procrastination at 12:11 PM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Comment removed. Being off-putting to unwanted political calls is fine, but suggesting that you've committed violence isn't something we want to encourage.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:55 PM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

If all else fails, tell them that you recently died.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 2:49 PM on April 29, 2023 [7 favorites]

Perhaps the politicians in your area are more energetic than mine, but I deal with this by telling every candidate who gets through to me--very few, because I never answer my phone or door unless I know who it is--that they have my absolute firm support.

That usually means they don't bother to call me back, preferring to focus their attention on someone they need to sway.

Once in a while it gets embarrassing when somebody I do not actually support asks me to take a lawn sign or something, but I am in a job that requires me to be publicly non-partisan, so I've got a good excuse to say no.
posted by rpfields at 3:28 PM on April 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I tell political candidates I abhor that every time they call me, I'm going to donate $5 to their opponent. Sometimes it seems to work, and sometimes it reminds me to send donations to politicians working to defeat people I want out of office.
posted by decathecting at 3:34 PM on April 29, 2023 [2 favorites]