I am currently on the “do not call” list. This is a list for people who don’t want to have to deal with unwanted calls. I’m one of them, yet, I often receive such calls up to several times daily. A few examples are offering extended coverage on my vehicle, extending my credit, and threatening to arrest me for not paying my already paid income taxes.
Turning to politics in Fayette County, I recently got a robocall from some top totem pole politicians urging me to vote for the SPLOST tax. Remember the 2004 SPLOST where what wasn’t said was more important than what was? That SPLOST was diabolically and methodically crafted to get a project that previous commissioners wanted without specifically listing it: the multi-million-dollar West Fayetteville Road to nowhere, now known as Veterans Parkway.
How is the 2017 SPLOST not going to allow the same slanted interpretations of its language? The 2004 SPLOST’s terminology allowed us taxpayers to foot the bill through “road, street and bridge purposes.” Yet,13 years later, it’s still not paid for in its entirety, because the county is short on funds to complete its termination roundabout at Ga. Highway 92 and Westbridge Road. No wonder all the commissioners who voted for it were voted out.
Folks, that’s politics for you. No wonder the county commissioners have been receiving a pathetic voter turnout for years. In fact, this is why we’re seeing a very expensive special election for SPLOST. The commissioners did not want to risk higher turnout in the November 2016 general election, as that would have created a greater likelihood of more “no” votes.
What SPLOST sponsors have done is to robo-program rosy selling points of what SPLOST will do for the county; not what SPLOST will do TO the county and its taxpayers. Unfortunately, the political robocalls are legal in Georgia, but not in all other states.
Here we have a situation where our voters will repeatedly not turn out en masse to vote on county issues. The thousands of robocalls that were made were effective enough to influence those few voters who did go to the polls to see things from a slanted point of view. Sad.
Robocalls are made by many political parties in the United States, including but not limited to both the Republican and Democratic parties as well as unaffiliated campaigns, 527 organizations, unions, and individual citizens. Political robocalls are exempt from the United States National Do Not Call Registry. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibit anyone (including charities, politicians and political parties) from making robocalls to cell phone numbers without the recipients’ prior consent. The FCC permits non-commercial robocalls to most residential (non-cellular) telephone lines.
The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) regulates automated calls. All robocalls, irrespective of whether they are political in nature, must do two things to be considered legal. Federal law requires all telephone calls using pre-recorded messages to identify who is initiating the calls and include a telephone number or address whereby the initiator can be reached.
If you want to give your telephone number a “no-call” tag, you might try registering it by calling 1-888-382-1222. It seemed a bit unusual that when I tried calling some incoming robo “caller i.d.” numbers, the response I received was that “this number is not reachable.” The fact is that 50 percent or more of those receiving such calls immediately hang up the phone rather than welcoming others to encroach upon their privacy.
Steve Smithfield
North Fayette County, Ga.
