Tech brief

Political Texts Are Flooding Phones Before Tuesday, and Some Are Scams

By , Tech Cheat Codes Team

Published 5 min read

Illustration: a tilted phone with a flood of text bubbles pouring out, such as "Last chance to give!", "Confirm your polling place" and "Click to claim your ballot…", beside a large amber warning triangle and a smaller shield with a checkmark.
Illustration: Tech Cheat Codes
On this page · 2 sections
  1. What to do about them
  2. References

Robyn Stuart of Grapevine, Texas, gets six to 12 political texts a day. She replies STOP and blocks the numbers. She reports them too. "I swear I get more and more," she said.

She has plenty of company, and the pile-up peaks this week, with the election on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Nobody has a firm count of political texts for this year, but an informal estimate from spam-protection company YouMail is 25 billion to 30 billion, about the same as 2024 or up to 10 percent higher. Robokiller counted 15 billion in 2022. Somewhere in that flood are scam texts dressed up to look like campaign messages, and on a phone screen they're hard to tell apart.

Signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry won't help, because political calls and texts are exempt. Campaigns also have legal room to text you. FCC rules require your consent for autodialed political texts to a cell phone, but a text sent by hand doesn't need it. Your number can come from public voter rolls or from data brokers that collect it from your online activity and loyalty programs, which is how some people get texts meant for a stranger or about a state they left years ago.

The FBI warned on Oct. 15 that scammers are using candidates' names, images, logos and slogans to collect fake donations, sell merchandise that doesn't arrive and harvest personal information, and that AI-generated voices and images make the fakes more convincing. Its list of schemes includes fake political action committees (PACs), "campaign investment pools" that promise a payout if a candidate wins, and a text or email claiming you aren't registered to vote, with a link to a bogus state registration page.

A stranger's number and a pushy tone don't make a text a scam. Not every unwanted political text is one, but some are. What gives a scam away is what it asks you to do: tap a link to fix your voter registration, confirm personal details, or put money into something that sounds like an investment. Donations aren't investments and won't be paid back. If you want to give, type in the candidate's or PAC's own website yourself instead of using a link in a text. You can check your registration at vote.gov, and a PAC's filings on the Federal Election Commission site. Some scam PACs appear registered there, and a PAC spending heavily on fundraising and administrative costs may be one.

What to do about them

If you recognize the campaign, reply STOP. That only opts you out of that sender, not everyone else's list. If you don't recognize the sender, or the text asks for money or personal details, don't reply and don't tap anything.

Then block the number and report it as spam. On an iPhone, reporting a text as junk doesn't block the sender, so do both. To keep texts from numbers you don't know out of your main list on an iPhone, open Messages, tap the filter button in the conversation list, tap Manage Filtering and turn on Screen Unknown Senders. In Google Messages, tap your profile picture, then Messages settings, Protection & safety and Spam protection, and make sure spam protection is on. Menu names vary by software version. You can also forward the text to 7726 (SPAM). Most carriers accept it, but check with yours. If enough people report the same number, a carrier may start labeling or blocking it, though that probably won't cut down your texts before Tuesday. Campaigns can also see who has already voted and may be less likely to keep texting them.

To complain about unwanted political texts, file at fcc.gov/complaints and pick the unwanted calls and texts category. The FCC doesn't resolve individual complaints, but it uses them to guide policy and enforcement. If you lost money or gave away personal details, report it to the FBI at ic3.gov.

For step-by-step help, see our guide: How to stop political texts.

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References