Bad Calls

TPMmuckraker October 31, 2006 03:35 PM: "In a Tense Election Year, Push Polls Flourish
By Paul Kiel - October 31, 2006, 3:35 PM

In increasingly tight races around the country, voters are receiving telephone 'push poll' calls, a classic dirty trick designed to suppress turnout on election day. One calling firm in particular, with White House ties and an impressive ability to fire off millions of automated calls per day, is benefiting from the strategy.

Gabriel Joseph III, president of the robo calling company FreeEats.com, may be the king of the push poll, in which real-sounding questions with ludicrous premises are asked to plant negative ideas in voters' minds. His company, which is better known under its business alias ccAdvertising, has impressive Republican ties: According to a recent piece in Mother Jones, the group has, on at least one occasion, drawn on its White House ties to get business. And its founder, Donald Hodel, is a veteran of the Reagan administration and a former president of Focus on the Family..."

Perhaps all robo-calls, of any kind, should be outlawed. I'm getting at least 20 per day and they often pile in at the worst possible time (like during dinner). Democracy would no more miss the robo-call than it misses telemarketers selling toothbrushes.