It’s not just the elections that are heating up as the campaign season enters the final days – phones are heating up, too, with a torrent of political robocalls and robotexts.
Almost 50 million political robotexts were sent to Arizona phones in September and October alone, according to the latest estimates by RoboKiller, a company that markets a spam-blocking app. It said Arizonans also got just over a million robocalls in the same period.
Arizona’s numbers were only good enough for 14th place among states on texts and 19th on calls. But that was more than enough for Lexi King, a senior studying social work at Arizona State University.The calls and texts keep coming despite the fact that the Federal Communications Commission considers most political robotexts illegal.
“I think one of the things that we’re seeing is that as the rise of attacks via text has increased, we see the rise in Republicans using it as a way to affordably and quickly go after an opponent,” said Paul Bentz, senior vice president at Arizona-based Highground Consultants. While the messages and calls can be annoying, they can also have a positive side if they encourage people to be civically engaged, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
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