Unfortunately our economic system is rife with scams, and overwhelms people with spam, which makes it hard for grassroots organizations and local candidates to communicate with supporters – a huge win for the oligarchy!
There are many PACs and SuperPACs that have been established with “operating costs” as high as 90%, meaning that only 10% of your contribution goes to the purposes you imagine. The rest goes into the PAC’s overhead such as director salaries or travel and conference fees.
- Never donate in response to text messages; instead, follow our How To Donate Effectively recommendations!
- Only donate to candidates and committees that you know and trust, such as the donation links in emails from your town, county, and state party.
- Any “donation matching” offer greater than “double” or “2X” is almost certainly a solicitation from a PAC, possibly one with very high operating costs – beware!
Reducing text spam
If any text message donation requests get through the spam filter on your phone, you can respond with STOP and by law they must stop. If they continue, use the “report as spam” feature on your phone, or report them to your cellular carrier or the FCC.
Reducing email spam
Candidate campaigns are exempt from some email marketing regulations, so you cannot stop this altogether. However, you can reduce it significantly. All campaigns and committees are required to abide by the CAN-SPAM act, and there must be an “unsubscribe” link in the email. Usually it is in very small print in the footer at the very end of the message.
Some email clients provide features to help you quickly unsubscribe, or to manage email list subscriptions that they detect. Check the Help feature for your email client and search for “unsubscribe” or “spam”.