Why robocalls are here to stay

Robocalls (pre-recorded, automated phone calls) are spam, plain and simple. I hate them as much as I hate direct mail (=snail mail spam) or yard signs (=public space spam).

But here's the first problem: effective direct voter contact is a trade-off between effectiveness and coverage, or your ability to persuade people vs your ability to reach people. Put in other words, the critical resources in any campaign are time, people, and money. Sometimes that equation makes robocalls your best option.

More on why campaigns insist on sending you those annoying phone calls below the fold

The examples I'm giving here are simple, and I've omitted reams of information on other related field techniques, because this is a post and not a field textbook. (I'm also hoping a few of you make it all the way to the end of the post before you die of boredom.) I'm always happy to discuss "field stuff." In this case, the choice to keep this post focussed on robocalls vs their opposite -- time-consuming but effective canvass programs -- is a deliberate choice in the name of brevity, clarity, and compassion for the reader.

On a campaign, if you have enough volunteers, paid field staff, and/or a willing candidate and candidate surrogates, you can run a powerful canvass program knocking on doors and talking to voters one-on-one. The logistics are a bit of a juggle, and you need good field staff and a good voter file manager to target your program, as well as great volunteer recruiters and managers to make sure you have enough boots on the ground. One-on-one voter contact takes a small amount of money but it takes a huge amount of *time.* Plus, because people are not always home, even a grade-A canvass program will not reach all voters.

In contrast, robocalls are available just by cutting a check. And, they don't take much time. They are FAR less effective, but they are *easier* for campaigns to do. Robocalls are limited by: the (accurate) phone matches on your voter file (seems to be around 60% in my experience), the number of people home when you call, and the number of people with answering machines or voice mail. But, in a matter of hours, you can reach the same number of voters with robocalls that it would take months and hundreds of people to reach with a canvass program.

Grassroots campaigns are hard work. All other factors being equal, a ground war (grassroots strategies such as canvassing) will beat an air war (paid media and direct mail). But, the trend in campaigns is to do the easy and comfortable thing--write the checks, and spam out the robocalls, direct mail, and tv and radio ads.

Speaking of which, here's the second problem: the BIG campaign consultants don't make money off of grassroots campaigns. So who pushes for spam techniques--why, the DC parasite class, naturally. Their financial gain is more important than the Democratic win.

[At this point I need to make a disclaimer. The notable exception to my statement above, in my personal experience, has been Marty Stone at Stone's Phones. I've actually worked on campaigns where Marty has said, "There's a less expensive way to do that," "There's a more effective way to do that," and "You don't need that round of calls. Cut it from your budget." I have an abiding respect for him because he puts his clients first and he does tremendous work.]

Let me present this to you as a case study: you are running a campaign. You've had a great field team, huge numbers of enthusiastic volunteers, but it is one week out and you've only managed to hit 6,000 households and ID 4,500 supporters (i.e., identify their voting preference) out of an expected turnout of 20,000 people. You can't safely run GOTV (get out the vote) with those numbers -- you don't have enough IDed supporters to drag to the polls to guarantee a win. Your volunteers also aren't going to be able to hit another 14,000 households or 5,900 supporters in the next week. (4,500 + 5,900 = 10,400 supporters, or 52% of the expected turnout, a standard GOTV win margin target.)

Your only reliable option is to do a round of phone ID's to hit a targetted list selected from the remaining 14,000 households to try to pick up another 5,900 voters. And, unless you have a bionic volunteer phonebank available, in most cases, the only realistic way to process those phone ID's is through a paid phone vendor.

Likewise, come Election Day, your time is running out, your quantity of volunteers depends on your candidate and how you've run your campaign, and you are throwing money at any problem that pops up. You need to remind all of your ID'd supporters to vote on election day. Depending on the specifics of your district and election, you may need to makes sure some of them get the reminders before election day itself (e.g., commuter districts where people may leave the house before polls open and return after polls close--you need to get a message to those voters in time to persuade them to vote). You have a variety of field techniques at your disposal for your GOTV program, but the technique that requires the least time and people are GOTV phone calls. If you can do all of your calls out of an effective, in-house volunteer live phone back, you'll spend less money and get better results. If you don't have the phone lines or the people to make a volunteer GOTV phone bank happen...you are back to robocalls.

That said, let's be honest: robocalls are as annoying as hell.

My strong suggestion to Democrats is to use robocalls sparingly and well.

I'll pursue those thoughts in a separate post.

Shaula Evans October 31, 2006 - 11:49pm

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They're perhaps worse than useless

When I get one, I notify the originating party, if possible, that because of the robocall, I'm not going to vote for their candidate.

This is the only way that these buggers are going to be convinced to stop--if they realize that the net effect is negative.

I can be a mean old cuss when the spirit moves me.

Look, if someone wants to reach me with a political message, let them call me and answer my questions instead of vomiting useless endorsements robotically at me and wasting my time.

I know darned well that once they're in office, all I'm going to get is platitudes and form letter responses.

Petronius November 1, 2006 - 1:40am

if you were in charge

Petronius, if you were running a campaign, with the kind of field numbers I outline above, how would you want to handle your voter contact program to eliminate robocalls?

Shaula Evans November 1, 2006 - 10:49am

Does "grass roots" mean anything anymore?

Get a phone bank together and start calling with some volunteers--you know, the way it used to be done before robocalls. I don't mind a political call during election season, if there's someone on the other end that I can ask questions of.

But today I received 5 robocalls. No phone bank volunteers, just recordings of idiots asking me to vote for another idiot. In Oregon, we get it worse, since we vote by mail and have 2 weeks to send in our ballots.

Heck, if my wife's alumnae association can keep pestering us until they find her at home, how hard could a political campaign be to staff?

Petronius November 2, 2006 - 2:03am

campaigns are indeed hard to staff

As I've said in another comment, GREAT campaigns fight for volunteers.

Most local campaigns (i.e., state level and lower) may have one or even zero full-time paid staff (depending on the part of the country you're in). Smaller campaigns are frequently "managed," part-time, by a friend or family member who also has a full-time job and other personal obligations.

Campaigns absolutely need volunteers, and grassroots is the way that Dems in.

However, coming up and coordinating volunteers is REALLY harde for smaller campaigns, especially when they are fighting for attention with bigger, "sexier," top of the ticket races.

But hey -- you sound really passionate about this. Have you considered volunteering as a voluteer manager or coordinator for a small local race? Or even just volunteering for GOTV stuff this weekend?

Campaigns are desparate for enough people to staff GOTV plans -- even just staffing all the polling places in a district is a challenge. Make the call. They'll be thrilled to hear from you.

Shaula Evans November 2, 2006 - 11:56am

Shaula, I don't mind a call

Shaula, I don't mind a call reminding me to vote.

What I do object to are the countless calls from "Hello, this is Senator Schmidlap and I'd like to tell you what a rat Horace Finkelbottom is."

GOTV-okay; campaigning--no.

But GOTV isn't much of a problem out here. As I said, we have over 2 weeks to cast our votes. A mild reminder here and there will get those folks who actually intend to vote.

For those who aren't going to vote no matter what they're told, there's no hope.

Petronius November 2, 2006 - 8:20pm

push polls, etc, drive me up a tree

One of my Virginia blogging colleagues, Waldo Jaquith, stirred up an interesting discussion on his blog a while back on push polls which includes comments from current and former employees of polling firms.

I envy you your early voting system. There's no early voting to speak of here in VA, except for an absentee ballot system that is VERY narrow and restrictive (and which most campaigns don't take advantage of at all -- to their peril).

When it comes to GOTV, also, don't forget: the Republicans' most crazy, right-wing, wing nut faction turn *themselves* out to vote, religiously (in every sense), whereas Democrats have notoriously low turnouts. So, Democratic campaigns (in most parts of the country) win or lose on their GOTV programs and their ability to turn out their (apathetic) voters.

Shaula Evans November 2, 2006 - 8:55pm

They are Worse than useless

When I get a robo-call from a candidate I support, I always ask myself whether the race is more important than the candidate's willingness to intrude in my private space. And unless I see the race as being very very important, I rescind my support.

If you do not have live bodies willing to talk to voters, your candidate is either next to irrellevant or he is a pest. He certainly is a pest if he resorts to robo calls. I consider it a form of breaking and entering. Forced entry.

Really. Get a different model.

mtspace November 1, 2006 - 5:47pm

different model = ?

mtspace, I'm the first person to say I want a different model.

However, I have to disagree with your statement: "If you do not have live bodies willing to talk to voters, your candidate is either next to irrellevant or he is a pest."

It takes hundreds and hundreds of volunteers to run a get out the vote operation in the last 4 days of a race, let alone all of the field activities running up to GOTV weekend. Most campaigns, even most great campaigns, struggle with volunteer recruitment.

So, if you don't want robocalls:
- what does your "new model" look like?
- where/how do you recruit the volunteers you need?

I should also point out in this discussion that "punishing" a candidate by not voting does not convey a message to that candidate (or to the industry), but it certainly does give a one vote advantage to your candidate's opponent: a vote for the opponent in effect. If you want to functionally cast a vote, by staying at home, for the candidate you like least...well, while it is your democratic prerogative, it isn't likely to result in good government or an elected official that represents your issues and interests.

I find a strange tendancy in American politics to vote based on how someone campaigns. Only you're not hiring someone to keep campaigning, you're hiring them to do the job of governing. I'd rather vote for someone who is good on policy (i.e., well-suited to perform well in the job) than based on their attitudes towards robocalls.

Shaula Evans November 1, 2006 - 8:28pm

Robocalls are dehumanizing

they represent everything your candidate should be against.

Responsible candidates should voluntarily filter on the Do Not Call list, and advertise the fact.

Recognition of voters as human beings will win more votes than any robocall.

tfisb November 2, 2006 - 4:11am

speaking of filtering

Do you have suggestions on how a campaign should filter against the Do Not Call list?

For example: there's a city council race in your neighbourhood. Your candidate's husband is working full time, helping with childcare, and managing his wife's race. Their voterfile is an Excel file that a local party committee sent them. They are running the campaign off the 10-year-old computer in their livingroom; before the campaign, they mostly used it to send email on their AOL account.

Because of an anti-gay rights referendum (put together by state Republicans as a pro-marriage initiative), your candidate knows that turnout in this race by republicans is going to be SUPER high, and the only way she can win is to drag people to the polls and not rely on another campaign to turn out her voters.

What are the steps they should take to check their phone list against the Do Not Call list?

Shaula Evans November 2, 2006 - 12:03pm

> Do you have suggestions on

> Do you have suggestions on how a campaign should filter
> against the Do Not Call list?

Check the "Filter against Do Not Call list" box on the robocall order form.

If your current vendor's order form doesn't have such a box, find a vendor that does.

tfisb November 2, 2006 - 5:33pm

the last time I checked

I don't know of any vendors off of the top of my head that order the service, because most companies that do paid phones for campaigns do primarily political work, and the Do Not Call list does not apply to campaign calls.

If anyone else knows of firms that do offer the service, I'd love to hear your recommendations.

Shaula Evans November 2, 2006 - 8:57pm

Surely your collaborator

Surely your collaborator Marty Stone can help you out?

If not, there are a dozen companies offering Do Not Call compliance software and services ...

http://www.google.com/search?q=do+not+call+compliance

... some with 24 hour turn-around, one is even offering free software ...

http://www.makemycalls.com/youneeddncsoftware.html

tfisb November 2, 2006 - 10:36pm

free is good

The free software is great news, tfisb, and may be a helpful resource for any campaigns who read the Agonist.

Thank you for sharing the information.