BEAUMONT, Texas — As election day quickly approaches, calls and texts from campaigns seem to be flooding in.
Some people have even asked if it's legal for campaigns to get your phone number. It actually is legal, but there are certain rules that apply to campaigns who use this method of contacting voters.
It can get annoying, and even when you respond with stop, it's not much longer until another political campaign is blowing up your phone. The reality is, lots of campaigns have switched from knocking on your door to flooding your phone.
Stephanie Oliphant is the director of grassroots for Murphy Nasica, a strategy and consulting firm.
"Text messages are a staple this year. It's kind of new, but again I think people are getting an abundance of text messages," Oliphant said.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, campaign calls and texts are exempt from the do not call list, but they do have to align with certain rules.
"We have to make sure each individual text is sent by a person, you can't just send like a mass email, each text is sent by an individual," Oliphant said.
They're also legally obligated to offer an option to opt out. It's as simple as replying stop, but you'll have to do that for each individual campaign.
Oliphant said they have had a pretty good response rate so far.
"So we actually have some pretty fun conversations with voters. We joke around, we had one voter ask us 20 questions before we can prove to him that we were a real person," Oliphant said.
So, behind the many calls and texts are people who want to hear from you.
"I hope people don't get too burnt out from it and I encourage you if you do have questions and a campaign reaches out to you, respond. Hopefully they'll respond back. If it's someone from our team, we definitely will," Oliphant said.
If you believe you might be receiving messages that are in violation of the rules, you can file a complaint with the FCC.
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