Campaign Reform: Get rid of robocalls

One of the comments I got from people I canvassed on election day and before was that they were tired of recieving so many phone calls, and that "If [they] got one more phone call they were going to stay home and not vote".  I even got a call while I was in the office complaining that we were calling the emergency number of a doctor, and that we were to stop calling them.

The worst of these are often the robocalls put out by both parties.  Not only do we get an annoying phone call, but we know there isn't anyone on the other end.  We can't ask then to stop calling us or they who they are who paid for the call.  I propose that we should ban robocalls, and not just political ones all phone calls.

When I get a phone call and answer my phone, I want and expect another person to be on the other end.  They are intruding into my person space and I find that offensive.  From what I can tell, most people do too.

I think that there should be a law which requires any outgoing phone call intended to reach a person to have a real live person on the other end, that is really just common curtesy but it seems far too many companies and campaigns don't have that.

Too many robocalls are made to be deliberately annoying and they start out with the name of the other side's candidate so that when people hand up, all they remember is that they got a call whey didn't want and the name of the person that the caller wants you to dislike.  Others are simply push polls, or made at inappropriate times.  These are the kinds that people really complain about.

The live caller needs to be willing to identify who they are, who they are working for, and what candidate they support (in the case of political call).  Also, they should be willing and able to put recipient of the call on their do not call list upon request.

I think that this would be a pretty simple, popular reform.  It can be done independent of any other campaign reform we might propose, and most Americans would be in favor of it both for political calls and commercial.