The sound of modern campaigning in Virginia increasingly sounds like a smartphone notification. Campaigns for everything from Congress to your local City Council are increasingly embracing a new way to reach potential voters— the text message.
"I put stop orders on mine. That's about all I can say," laughs Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School at George Mason University.
"I understand why campaigns are doing this," he admits. "But they just have to be careful not to inundate people and cause a kind of backlash from people who don't want to be interrupted."
Part of why the campaigns are moving away from robocalls and toward text messages is that they're so cheap— one cent per text message and three cents per message if you add a photo.
Wes Bellamy at Virginia State University says campaigns collect information about voters on a series of lists. "Their information is available on these lists, and because people now sell those lists or people more easily share them, the potential candidate now has greater access to those lists which allow them to have direct-to-consumer interaction."
Voting has already started in the June primary, so campaigns know who has voted and who hasn't. That means they can tailor their text messaging campaigns directly to likely voters who have not yet cast a ballot all the way up until the polls close at 7pm on Tuesday June 18.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
