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There are still 3 days until the conclusion of the presidential election, but people are tired of receiving unsolicited text messages.

During this election period, Internet users complained on social networks about the excessive quantity of SMS messages they received from political action committees.

Please federally ban text messages related to political campaigns.

Please.

– Edgar McGregor (@edgarrmcgregor) October 29, 2024

Unfortunately, it appears that, for now, the only remedy for these text messages is to send a TCPA “demand letter” to the campaigns sending the text messages.

Via Mercury News

A: Text messages are considered illegal spam if they are sent by a commercial entity using an autodialer, without your consent. But the political texts are different. They are governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which does not require consumers to “opt-in” if they are sent manually.

But having a human press “send” as the trigger to broadcast thousands of texts into the ether obviously violates the spirit of the TCPA.

-Scott Wallsten

If a campaign texts you and you’re not interested, respond with STOP. You can also report the sender by sending SMS messages to 7726 (or “SPAM”). If they persist or you believe they have violated federal rules, you can file an informal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission at fcc.gov/complaints.

Make sure you are registered on the national Do Not Call Registry. Political texts are exempt, so this won’t stop them, but it does give you the right to file a TCPA “demand letter” to the campaign, notifying them of the alleged violation. This is an easy way to get them stopped, because TCPA fines are very expensive. The more people who do this, the more campaigns will re-examine whether texting is a viable channel.

Paul Mitchel of Political Data Inc., which specializes in California voter data and software tools, told the Mercury News that the best way to avoid political texts is to vote as early as possible.

“Vote. We report everyone who has returned a ballot every day. That also means we know the millions of voters who still have a ballot in hand. And so, as Election Day approaches, “many campaigns will be texting voters who still haven’t returned their ballots.”