TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal

Re: Pre-Recorded Phone Should be Illegal

Eric Tappert (e.tappert.spamnot@worldnet.att.net)
Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:52:56 GMT

On 31 Oct 2004 19:43:19 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock)
wrote:

> In this election season, I have been BOMBARDED with pre-recorded phone
> calls pitching various candidates, flooding my answering machine.

> I know election phone calls are legal.

> However, I think pre-recorded phone calls, of any kind, should be
> illegal.

> The constant ringing of the phone this year was terribly annoying.

> If it had been last year, it would've been devastating. Last year at
> this time I was caring for a seriously ill person and was ill myself.
> I was in frequent touch with doctors, phamarcies, nurses, and
> families. I had to keep the phone open and answer all calls.

> To a healthy person, the constant ringing was terribly annoying. I
> would've gone out of my mind last year.

> When you're in bad pain, a ringing telephone is not a pleasant thing.

> BTW, I also received several live calls urging a deceased member of
> family to go vote, even though that person was removed from the
> election rolls quite some time ago. [In hindsight I wish I requested
> they come and assist that person to the polls.]

> When I go to the polls Tuesday, I will talk to the politicians (the
> people who stand outside and give out leaflets). I will ask them for
> their home phone numbers, but I have a funny feeling they, for some
> strange reason, won't give them to me.

Amen to that, Lisa. I happen to live in a "battleground" state and
have averaged over 6 calls per day for the last two weeks. Very
annoying. Telemarketers were never this bad ...

Eric Tappert

I hear the lawyers are going to argue that tombstones really can vote
this year! :-)

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One real, actual problem has been with
the advance voting allowed in so many states. Florida is a good
example. A gazillion old people live in Florida and quite a few of
them have already voted. How the question is you voted last week, then
you die yesterday or today (as many folks have already done; died, I
mean.) Do you count the votes or not? Everywhere has a law saying
dead people are disqualified from voting (except in Chicago). Most
states have a law which says if a person dies before election day,
their vote is not to be counted. Are they going to cross check the
morgue records with the election records? That is a serious question
under debate in Florida where there are such a huge number of
senior citizens in residence and where there are many deaths each
day. Someone has suggested if this election is very close, it may
come down to the 537 or so people in Florida who died between the
time voting started a couple weeks ago and the official close of
the polls tomorrow.

Here is another example: two guys are in the Army, both registered to
vote out of Fort Campbell, KY/TN (which straddles two state lines.) One
lives in a barracks on the Kentucky side of the line; the other in a
barracks on the Tennessee side. Both were sent to Iraq (what else is
new?) both submitted absentee ballots in the past few days. Both were
killed in action a few days ago when the military transport bus was
blown up. According to the law in Kentucky, that guy's vote *is*
counted. According to the law in Tennessee, the other guy's vote is
*not* counted (deceased prior to the official election day). So the
one soldier's vote is counted, the other one's is not. Is that fair?
Indeed, the people who have voted in advance of November 2 but who
then died (for whatever reason *before* November 2) will probably give
the 'army' of ten thousand lawyers we have heard about for awhile now
busy-work for a long time. PAT]

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