As the 2024 general elections near, voters across the country are likely finding their phones blowing up with political text messages as local and national candidates vie for votes before polls close.
Despite Illinois not being a swing state at the presidential level, the state has been among the most targeted for political text messages, along with other highly populated states like California and Texas.
Despite the total number of political robocalls decreasing over the past two years, political text messages are on the rise, according to Robokiller, a call-blocking service.
“It can be very frustrating for individuals to get a barrage of text messages or emails or phone calls and not have any real recourse to be able to stem that tide,” John Verdi, the senior vice president at think tank "Future Privacy Forum" said.
According to Robokiller, over 15 billion political text messages were sent in 2022, which is about 50 messages for each phone in the country - a figure expected to be even higher for the 2024 election.
"It's a political problem, it's a thorny problem and it's not likely to get better between now and Election Day," Verdi said.
According to Verdi, political messaging, whether through e-mail, text message or phone calls, are largely unregulated.
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"We don't want the government putting its thumb on the scale when it comes to political discourse. But at the same time, these sorts of messages, when they're sent in the commercial context, are often subject to strong safeguards," Verdi said.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, campaign calls and text messages are exempt from National Do Not Call Registry requirements, and campaigns are able to send messages without the recipient's consent.
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Many wonder how the campaigns access their information in the first place.
"I think people don't fully appreciate that their data is already out there in one way, shape or form, and can be bought or sold. And if you're a political campaign, you're trying to reach certain demographics, it's often easier to buy that information from a broker who can provide that to you immediately, and you can target those individuals for your campaign," Zulfikar Razman of Aura, a digital security company, said.
Campaigns are not allowed to use autodialing technology per FCC rules, but campaigns often upload voter data into texting services such as Callhub, which advertises its agents can manually send up to 1,500 texts per hour.
How to Stop Political Text Messages
The first step is simply to try texting "STOP" in all caps, which can be taken as an opt-out by automated systems that may then delete the number from the database.
"The other thing that folks can do if they receive unwanted text messages is they can forward those spam text messages to the Federal Communications Commission and they can send that to the text short code 7726 that spells out SPAM for span on your phone," Verdi said.
Going forward, Razman said there are steps you can take to protect yourself before the texts and calls begin.
"If you're going to make donations to campaigns anywhere that could collect your information, it would behoove you to have a separate e-mail address for that kind of stuff, so that all your scam and spam e-mails just go to one place," Razman said.
Beware: Scam Texts
A large portion of the political texts you may receive this time of year are probably scams.
These messages often include some urgency, that may ask for monetary donations or urge you to register to vote. Experts advise to not click any links sent from a number you don't know.
Voters are also advised to be on alert for the phrase "would you kindly," which security experts warn the phrase, which is uncommon in the U.S. but common in former British colonies such as India, Nigeria and Pakistan, is an indicator of scam messages.
