Indiana’s law prohibiting automated telephone solicitations, robocalls, is the law that keeps on giving this campaign season. The first splash was made during a pro-Sodrel call that the State Attorney General deemed illegal — because it clearly was. Indiana’s law states that:
A caller may not use or connect to a telephone line an automatic dialing-announcing device unless:
(1) the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message; or
(2) the message is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the subscriber’s consent before the message is delivered.
(The Souder campaign had to use cut rate telemarketers who ended up having such heavy accents recipients couldn’t understand them when they delivered their anti-Hayhurst, anti-immigrant messages.)
Now it looks like a pro-Brizzi series of robocalls has also run afoul of the law in the Marion County Prosecutor’s race. The Indiana Republican Party subsequently fired Conquest Communications, a Virginia company hired to make the calls. They claim that the company used a live person to make the call and obtain consent prior to playing the message but the party fired the company because they wanted the calls to be 100% live. But telephone recordings of the calls have no live introduction, casting doubt on those claims.
TPMmuckraker has coverage of annoying and harassing Republican robocall efforts all across the country on election eve, including calls that attempt to disguise the source of the call.
It’s pretty telling that the Republican party has to result to outright harrassment and deception in their attempt to hold on to power. Thankfully Indiana has largely been spared these robocalls. In some of the tight races elsewhere, people are getting dozens of calls in a row in an obvious attempt to suppress the vote. In a perfect world, that would be a line-em-up-and-shoot-em type of offense.