Do not call list, for politics

There is a bill pending before the state legislature to create a do not call list for political calls. There is an article explaining the ins and outs further here. The bill would maintain a list, but compliance would be voluntary. This is probably the best possible solution since it would be unconstitutional to force campaigns to not call.

The real problem here is not political calling, but irresponsible political calls. My thoughts on the matter are below:

1. Robo calls for the purpose of annoyance. The Republicans used this tactic a lot during the last cycle. They would call multiple times and make it seem as though the call was from the Democrat. If you listened long enough, you would figure out who the call really came from, but most hung up before then. This practice should be outlawed or curtailed. Perhaps the best solution is to state up front who paid for the calls and not the front-group, but who coughed up the cash.
2. Robo calls in general: Candidates, don't use robo calls. They serve no real purpose, they do not work and they cost money. Bad consultants will try to convince you that this is the best use of your money. After all, you can pay 5 cents per call and reach 10x more people than you can at 50 cents for a live call. Don't believe the hype. There are only a few studies on this topic, but they showed that the effectiveness was within the margin of error. This means that they could actually be marginally negative.
3. Short-sighted campaign consultants: This is true of live and robo calls. People running campaigns only look short-term and don't care about the long-term affect of calling people over and over trying to increase contact rates. Candidates should be very concerned about this because it gives them a bad name.

What this comes down to is that you have to have a message that sticks with voters and a good plan for contacting them. Be efficient, not annoying.