Effectiveness of Automated Calls

There is only one thing that gets under voter's skins than a million yard signs in the right of way. It is the automated call.

Helmke used them in the past and there are a few candidates using them now. Don't get me wrong. They work well in other places. Allen County is a little different when it comes to being interrupted during Jeopardy.

They hate being called by a campaign in the evening. I spoke with one voter recently who said "if they're going to call me they should at least have the balls to have a live person on the other end."

In this area when people realize that the caller is nothing more than a recorded message they hang up. How effective can that be? The answer is minimal.

The effectiveness can backfire completely if more than one candidate is using them. A second auto-caller can cause voters to have a negative impression of either one or both of the campaigns that called them. Every automated call a voter gets increases the likelihood they won't vote for a candidate who used them.