Campaign text messages: Effective or Invasive?

As young people’s rise in activism within politics surges, text messaging has become the current favorite campaign strategy of political candidates to get the young voters to the polls. 

            President Obama’s famous use of social media during his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns has inspired current political candidates to turn to technology as their primary way of reaching young voters.

            Volunteers for Andrew Gillum’s campaign, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida and current mayor of Tallahassee, hosted a text messaging event in Tallahassee, Florida, on Sept 18 where some of Gillum’s supporters sent out mass texts to voters informing them of Gillum’s platform and answering questions voters might text back with.

            “We’re thrilled that our campaign uses texting to reach voters, and the Mayor really loves interacting with users on social media,” said Geoff Burgan, the communications director for Andrew Gillum’s campaign.

Arthur Vanden Houten, an associate professor of political science at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, claims that young people are more easily accessible through technology which makes texting an effective way for candidates to reach that demographic.

            “So we think we know at least that young people are on Snapchat, Instagram and they’re texting. So, I think the idea is if we can reach them this way, we can put the issues in front of them and we will then have greater success,” said Vanden Houten. “It’s a kind of micro-targeting which has been this key feature of 21^st century politics.”

            With any new campaign strategy comes questions of its effectiveness. Are these text messages helping candidates at the polls?

            Adam Morley, a candidate for Florida’s House of Representatives for District 24, claims that although there are not exact numbers that prove its effectiveness that he knows of, the strategy behind sending out texts to voters is based on creating a more personal connection with citizens, which in turn could urge voters to become more active.

            “Just before the primary, I ended up getting probably a total of six messages from people hustling for Gillum. I got text messages saying, ‘Hey can we count on your support? Here’s his platform,’” Morley said. “It gave me the chance to respond on my own time instead of having to answer immediately. And then when I did respond there was somebody at the other side that would respond back and there’d be a dialogue there rather than this static material of flyers and pamphlets.”  

Young voters are notorious for having the lowest voter turnout at the polls during elections, even though the issues that are being decided by those elected into office will be impacting them the most, claims Morley.

            “We have a generation of people in power and control making decisions that they’re not even going to be around to deal with,” Morley said. “It’s important that the younger voters get active and involved because the sooner they do, the sooner their issues are going to be addressed and the longer they will have to benefit from the policies that they helped influence and get started.”

Concerns over the legalities of political candidates texting voters have been brought up, questioning candidates’ infringement on voters’ privacy.

Starting during the 2016 presidential campaign, campaigns could text citizens using the phone numbers that were voluntarily provided when they registered to vote, making text messaging voters perfectly legal. One rule that campaigns must adhere to when texting citizens is that there must be a live volunteer on the other end of the phone, according to ABC7 News.

Now that text message campaigning has been established in the political sphere, it is time for young voters to use that easily-accessible information to continue to get involved in politics, said Morley.

“What’s really important is that we’re able to inspire and motivate the younger voters to take the initiative rather than sitting around and waiting for them to act on the opportunity that’s in front of them with the tools they already have,” Morley said. “They already have that cell phone and they’re already texting people. Let’s insert the campaign into that so they can say ‘Hey did you hear about Adam Morley’s campaign,’ or ‘Let’s get involved.’”