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Poll: Most U.S. Voters Hit By Robo Calls
Any way you cut it, it's clear that the robo call really arrived this year -- and was mostly overlooked as a prominent new weapon in campaign strategists' arsenals.
Underscoring its reputation as a "stealth" campaign tactic, a new poll shows that two-thirds of registered voters got at least one robo call during the midterm election season.
The poll, conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that 64% of registered U.S. voters got at least one recorded phone call in 2006. And that's across the country -- you can bet that percentage was much higher in competitive districts.
Only direct mail was a more popular method for campaigns, reaching 71% of voters. But the robo call blew out other more traditional forms of campaigning like going door to door (only 18% of voters were reached that way) or getting a phone call from a real live human being (24%). Pew didn't even bother to track robo calling in 2004.
So, what percentage of those who got a robo call got two, three, or a dozen more? How many got six calls in a row? We still don't know.
Leave it to the Republicans --- use dirty tricks, outspend the opponents, and *still* lose.
December 21, 2006 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not all robo-calls (pre-recorded messages) are created equal; there's "robo-calls" and then there's "robo-calls" :) I received 4: one each from the dueling banjos (Allen and Webb) and one, the day after the elections, from Nancy Pelosi, thanking me for the contributions to Emily's list. There was only one "illegitimate" call -- a push-poll type thing, from the Reps. But,having been warned about those, I just put the receiver down after the first fake "question" and "forgot" to replace it for the next 45minutes. Hope that phone call cost them mucho peso.
But, if I had been asked by Pew if I got any robo-calls, I'd have had to say I got 4, not one. Paul seems to assume that *all* robo-calls had been the Rep-generated, deceptive ones. But that's just not true, at least not of my particular situation.
December 21, 2006 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paul, I didn't get to add my vote to the Pew poll, but I received three robo calls this year. Two were from one candidate and one from a different one. And, to be honest, the single one was from a candidate that wasn't on my district's ballot; wrong number, I suppose.
December 21, 2006 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got many robocalls but none from republicans. They were from Al Gore, Barbara Lee, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, etc. for local and statewide propositions and Dem candidates both statewide and local. Also got calls from live human beings, both campaign and polling, and door visits. The robocalls have been coming for a number of years now, but living in the 9th CD of California, I think the repubs don't bother with us much.
December 22, 2006 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink