TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal

Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal

Paul A Lee (palee@riteaid.com)
4 Nov 2004 16:25:21 -0000

In TELECOM Digest V23 #529, jared@nospam.au (jared) wrote (in part):

> Oregon Republicans called me repeatedly on my cell phone ...

> Calling cell phones costs the person called money, did they
> think about that? ...

> I asked them to stop ... they didn't ... one person could
> even tell me the next pre-recorded call to expect ... they
> said they got my number from the elections office ...

> The stupidest call was about going to polling places ...
> Oregon voted by 'mail', ballots came in the mail ...

> Anyone in Oregon have a similar experience with junk political
> calls?

There were numerous anecdotal reports of nuisance phone calls,
recorded messages, cell phones being called, and other activities that
amounted to harassment, being committed by misguided loyalists of one
party and attributed to the opposing party.

The apparent goal was to p*ss off the recipient enough to provoke them
to vote for the other party (the one actually supported by those
making the bogus calls).

There were also some less-than-gracious reactions from
get-out-the-vote callers when the person called said s/he would or did
vote for the opposing party. A worker for one party abruptly hung up
on my wife when she told the caller that she had already voted for the
opposition. An acquaintance told me that a campaign worker for the
other party let fly some personal epithets when told that my
acquaintance had already voted for the opposing candidate.

Isn't it wonderful how the democratic process brings out the best in
people ...?

Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer <palee@riteaid.com>
Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355
30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789
P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I remember something like that
happening in Chicago years ago. Someone who was basically Republican
in their outlook and sympathies and wanted to get others to feel the
same way went through the phone book and called up a huge number of
people between 3 and 4 AM every night and after getting the head of
the household (usually) out of bed and awake would inquire who they
were speaking to (leaving the head of the household to fear the worst
[ie must be police calling, must have been some horrible accident, or
a death, etc]) then proceeded to tell the party, 'be sure vote
Democratic at the polls next week, and vote as often as you can get
away with it', then they would hang up. The Republican Party is almost
non-existent in Chicago; people are either straight- out Democrats or
maybe they are 'independent voters'. Those middle of the night phone
calls convinced more than one person that the Chicago Democratic Party
was every bit as corrupted and rotten as they have been given credit
for over the years. PAT]

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