Political campaign-related autodialed or prerecorded voice calls, including autodialed live calls, autodialed texts, and prerecorded voice messages, are prohibited to cell phones, pagers or other mobile devices without the called party's prior express consent. The same restrictions apply to protected phone lines such as emergency or toll-free lines, or lines serving hospitals or similar facilities.
All prerecorded voice message calls, campaign-related and otherwise, must include certain identification information:
The identity of the business, individual, or other entity initiating the call must be clearly stated at the beginning of the prerecorded message.
If the calling party is a business or corporate entity, the entity's official business name must be stated clearly at the beginning of the message.
The telephone number of the calling party must be provided, during the message. We require all Political calls to have a validated Caller id to be used on all outbound calls
Three Robocalls to Residential Landlines Per 30 days Are Exempt from the Prior Consent Requirement- political entities are limited to three robocalls within a 30-day period to any given landline phone number, unless you have the recipient’s consent. To obtain consent, you must have express oral or written consent from the recipient via one of the three robocalls or a live call. And, as before, you (the individual caller and/or organization) must clearly identify yourself at the beginning of the call.
Access to Opt-Out Via Your Phone Number – The FCC already requires you to provide the phone number of your organization in all your robocalls. Starting July 20, you must also ensure that anyone who calls this number during business hours can make a do-not-call request. If no one answers the call, your voicemail message should include a toll-free phone number that connects the caller to your opt-out system
Written Policy, Staff Training-written policy, available upon demand, for maintaining a do-not-call list that complies with FCC rules. Personnel involved with robocalls must be informed of and trained on the existence and use of the do-not-call list. Do-not-call requests must be honored within 30 days of the request and for five years from the time the request is made.
In an effort to protect consumers from excessive robocalling, the FCC has been increasingly regulating these calls since 2019 and the adoption of the “TRACED Act” (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act) of 2019. The new requirements have been in effect for commercial telemarketers for some time now, and the FCC believes the expanded rules should not be hard for nonprofits and political organizations to implement. For more information, please visit the FCC website