Texting and Robocall Rules

Texts get read. Most campaigns that can afford nothing else can afford a few thousand texts, which is why they are also where small campaigns most often break federal law. The TCPA lets anyone who receives an unlawful call or text sue for $500 per message, and a court may triple that for a knowing or willful violation (47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3)). Course 46 sums up the basics in Literature, Signs and Ads. This lesson is the working detail. Building the list itself, with consent, is lesson 2.

The federal rule

The TCPA is in 47 U.S.C. 227, and the FCC's rules are in 47 CFR 64.1200. The FCC treats a text as a call. The core rule, 64.1200(a)(1)(iii), bars any call "using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice" to a cell phone number unless it is made for an emergency or with the called party's "prior express consent." The rule applies to "any person or entity," so it covers candidates, parties, PACs, ballot measure committees and issue groups.

Two levels of consent appear in the rules. Prior express written consent, a signed agreement naming the number, is required for telemarketing and advertising calls (64.1200(a)(2)). Political calls are not telemarketing, which the rules define as encouraging the purchase of property, goods or services. So political callers need the lower level, prior express consent. In practice that means the person gave the campaign the number for this kind of contact: a sign-up form that says "We'll text you campaign updates," a text to the campaign's number asking to join, a box ticked at an event. A number scraped from a website, bought from a list broker or copied from a voter file is not consent.

The FCC's page on political campaign calls and texts puts it in plain terms as of October 2026: autodialed or prerecorded political calls and autodialed texts to cell phones need prior express consent; robocalls to landlines may be made without consent but are limited to three in any consecutive 30 days; manually sent texts do not need consent; prerecorded messages must identify the caller at the start and give a phone number; and campaign calls are outside the National Do Not Call Registry, though the TCPA still applies.

Call or text	To a cell phone	To a residential landline	Other duties
Live volunteer dialing by hand	No consent needed	No consent needed	Honor do-not-call requests as good practice; Idaho dialing law does not apply
Peer-to-peer text, each sent by a person	Generally no consent needed after Duguid, if the platform is not an autodialer	Not applicable	Carrier registration (10DLC); honor STOP; Idaho attribution if it urges a vote
Mass text "blast" from an automated platform	Prior express consent if the platform is an autodialer; carriers require opt-in regardless	Not applicable	Revocation rules; carrier registration
Prerecorded or AI voice call	Prior express consent	No consent if 3 or fewer per 30 days and opt-out honored	Identify at start; phone number; automated opt-out; do-not-call list; Idaho 48-1003C
Ringless voicemail	The FCC has treated these as calls; treat as prerecorded	Same	Same as prerecorded

Sources: 47 CFR 64.1200 and the FCC political calls page. The ringless voicemail row reflects an FCC ruling not reviewed in full for this lesson; treat it as the cautious reading.

Autodialers after Facebook v. Duguid

The statute defines an automatic telephone dialing system as equipment with the capacity "to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator" and to dial them (47 U.S.C. 227(a)(1)). For years courts split over whether any system that dials from a stored list counted. On April 1, 2021, in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, a unanimous Supreme Court held that a device qualifies only if it can either store or produce a number using a random or sequential number generator. Facebook's login-alert texts, sent to stored numbers, were outside the definition.

That decision is why peer-to-peer texting platforms work the way they do. A volunteer loads a list of supporters, and the platform shows one message at a time; the volunteer presses send for each. No random or sequential number generator, no autodialer, and so no consent requirement for the autodialer rule. Three cautions keep this from being a free pass:

• Duguid is about autodialers only. The separate ban on "artificial or prerecorded voice" calls to cell phones without consent is untouched. A ringless voicemail or an AI voice message is still covered.
• Some states have their own autodialer laws written more broadly. Idaho's dialing rule, below, is about disclosure rather than consent, but a campaign texting voters in other states should check theirs.
• Carriers do not care about Duguid. Their registration and consent rules apply to application-to-person texting whatever the TCPA says.

A 2025 decision changed how much weight FCC interpretations carry. In McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., decided June 20, 2025, the Court held that the Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in civil enforcement cases to the FCC's reading of the statute; courts must decide the law's meaning themselves, giving the FCC appropriate respect. FCC rulings on what counts as a call or an artificial voice remain the agency's position and drive its own enforcement, but a court hearing a private TCPA suit may read the statute differently, in either direction.

AI voices and the New Hampshire case

On February 8, 2024, the FCC announced that it had unanimously adopted Declaratory Ruling FCC 24-17 (adopted February 2 and released February 8), recognizing that calls made with AI-generated voices are "artificial" under the TCPA. The ruling took effect immediately. Its practical effect: an AI clone of a candidate's voice, or a synthetic narrator, triggers every rule for artificial or prerecorded voice calls, including consent for cell phones and identification for all calls.

The ruling came less than three weeks after the case that made it urgent. On January 21, 2024, two days before New Hampshire's presidential primary, thousands of voters received calls with an AI-generated imitation of President Biden's voice telling them to save their vote for November. The calls spoofed the caller ID of a former state party official. The FCC's actions, and what followed:

• The carrier. Lingo Telecom, which transmitted the calls, agreed to a $1 million settlement with the FCC in August 2024 over caller ID authentication failures.
• The consultant. The FCC proposed a $6 million forfeiture against the political consultant who arranged the calls on May 23, 2024, under the Truth in Caller ID Act, and finalized it on September 26, 2024. CyberScoop reported the figure began with a $1,000 base per call for about 3,000 spoofed calls, doubled for egregiousness.
• The state prosecution. New Hampshire charged the consultant with felony voter suppression and misdemeanor impersonation of a candidate. A jury acquitted him on all counts in June 2025, WBUR reported; the defense argued the primary was an unsanctioned straw poll and that Biden was not a declared candidate on the ballot. He told the AP he would not pay the FCC fine.

The lesson for a small Idaho campaign is simple. Federal enforcement in the case came through caller ID spoofing and carrier rules, not a new AI law, and the criminal case failed on state-law specifics. The civil exposure under the TCPA and Idaho's synthetic media law (lesson 9) is real either way. A campaign using its own candidate's cloned voice with consent and clear identification is on different ground from an impersonation, but it is still an artificial voice call.

Landlines, identification and do-not-call

Under 64.1200(a)(3)(ii), a prerecorded call to a residential landline that is "not made for a commercial purpose" needs no consent if the caller makes no more than three calls within any consecutive 30-day period to that line and honors opt-out requests. Tax-exempt nonprofits get a parallel limit in (a)(3)(iv).

Every artificial or prerecorded voice message, landline or cell, must under 64.1200(b):

• state clearly at the beginning who is responsible for the call (a business must use its registered name);
• state a phone number during or after the message, not the autodialer's number;
• for calls made under the residential exemptions, provide an automated voice or key-press opt-out within two seconds of the identification, which records the number to the caller's do-not-call list and ends the call; and if the message is left on voicemail, give a toll-free number that reaches that opt-out.

Rule 64.1200(d) adds that no one may make prerecorded calls under those exemptions unless they keep a written policy and a list of people who asked not to be called. The do-not-call list is a legal requirement for exempt political robocalls, not only a courtesy.

The National Do Not Call Registry does not apply. The registry rules cover "telephone solicitations," which 64.1200(f)(15) defines as calls encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods or services. A call asking for a vote does not fit. The FCC's political calls page confirms campaign calls are outside the registry's requirements. The 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. calling window in 64.1200(c)(1) is also written for telephone solicitations, so it does not bind political calls by its terms. Keep to it anyway; a 9:30 p.m. robocall earns no votes.

Revoking consent: the 2025 rules

The FCC's 2024 consent order rewrote the revocation rules, and they took effect on April 11, 2025. As of October 2026, 64.1200(a)(10) through (12) say:

• A person may revoke consent to calls or texts "by using any reasonable method." A key-press opt-out on a call, a reply text with "stop," "quit," "end," "revoke," "opt out," "cancel" or "unsubscribe," or the caller's designated website or phone line all count automatically.
• Other words in a reply text count if a reasonable person would read them as a request to stop. "Please don't text me again" is a revocation.
• A voicemail or email to the campaign creates a presumption of revocation.
• Requests must be honored within a reasonable time, not more than 10 business days. A caller may not name one exclusive way to revoke.
• One confirmation text is allowed if it only confirms and has no promotional content. Sent within five minutes, it is presumed fine.
• A sender using a protocol that cannot accept replies must say so on each text and give other ways to opt out.

One piece is not yet in force. The order also said that a revocation in reply to one kind of message reaches all of a caller's robocalls and robotexts, even on unrelated subjects. The FCC delayed that "revoke-all" requirement first to April 11, 2026 and then, in Order DA 26-12 on January 6, 2026, to January 31, 2027, while it considers changing it. For a campaign that sends only one kind of message, the difference is small: a STOP means stop.

Idaho's rules

Idaho's Telephone Solicitation Act, Title 48, Chapter 10, is built around sales. Its definition of "telephone solicitation" in 48-1002(11) is a call to get someone to purchase or invest in goods or services, or certain prize and discount offers. Idaho's no-call list in 48-1003A, which may be the national registry, applies only to those solicitations, with civil penalties of up to $500, $2,500 and $5,000 for first, second and later violations. A call asking for a vote or a signature is not a telephone solicitation, so the no-call list does not reach it.

One section is broader. Idaho Code 48-1003C, added in 2007, applies "when a person intends to utilize an automatic dialing-announcing device," defined as a device that selects and dials numbers and plays a prerecorded or synthesized voice message. At the outset of the message the caller must disclose the name of the person for whom the message is made, the purpose of the message, and the caller's contact information. The section says "a person," not "telephone solicitor." This lesson found no Idaho case applying it to a political robocall, but its words reach one, and "synthesized voice" covers AI voices. A violation of the chapter is treated as a violation of the Idaho Consumer Protection Act (48-1003(2)), which the attorney general's consumer protection division enforces.

Idaho's campaign finance law adds two more points. A mass text or robocall that urges a vote and is paid for with campaign money should carry attribution under 67-6614A, and the 2026 primary complaints included anonymous texts the Secretary of State's office could not trace. And telephone calls to personal residences are named in Idaho's definition of electioneering communications, so a robocall naming a candidate in the final 30 or 60 days can trigger a 67-6628 statement (lesson 6).

Registering to text: 10DLC and Campaign Verify

Carriers police business texting through their own rules. Texts sent from software to people, called application-to-person or A2P messaging, over ordinary ten-digit numbers (10DLC) must be registered with The Campaign Registry, the industry's registration hub, through the texting vendor. Each sender registers a brand (who you are) and a campaign (what kind of messages). Unregistered traffic is filtered or blocked, and vendors charge their own registration and monthly fees, which vary; get them in writing.

Political senders use a special path. Campaign Verify, a nonpartisan nonprofit and an authorized vetting partner of The Campaign Registry, verifies candidates, parties, PACs and other political committees that are 527 organizations registered with the FEC or a state, local or tribal election authority. As of October 2026 its page says:

• The verification fee is $95 for all committee types, once per entity per two-year election cycle. Generating texting tokens costs nothing extra.
• Some carriers have required a Campaign Verify token for political 10DLC texting since 2021; it opens the political use case and higher sending rates.
• Since November 5, 2025 it also issues tokens for short code and toll-free texting, which one carrier has required since February 17, 2026.
• Verification takes minutes to two business days; a PIN goes to an email, phone or address on the committee's current filing, by mail in about 5 to 10 business days.

An Idaho candidate committee or PAC registered in the Secretary of State's Sunshine system should fit Campaign Verify's eligibility for "any state, local or tribal candidate or committee registered with an election authority." A 501(c)(4) issue group that is not a political committee does not fit Campaign Verify's description and registers through its vendor under a nonprofit or other use case instead.

The carriers' expectations are summed up in CTIA's Messaging Principles and Best Practices (May 2023), which names political campaigns among non-consumer senders. CTIA sorts messages into conversational (the person texted first), informational (the person gave the number and asked for updates) and promotional, with consent expected to rise from implied to express to express written. It asks senders to show a clear call to action at sign-up, confirm opt-ins for recurring messages, and support opt-out by text, call or email at any time.

Questions and answers

A supporter gave us her cell number on a town hall sign-in sheet with no mention of texts. Can our blast platform text her?

Treat it as weak. Giving a number on a sheet may show consent to be contacted, but a sheet that says nothing about texts is easy to challenge, and CTIA expects a clear call to action. Send her a single personal peer-to-peer text asking whether she wants updates, and add her to the automated list only if she says yes.

Can our candidate record a message and send it as a ringless voicemail to cell phones?

Not without consent. A recorded message is a prerecorded voice. The method of delivery does not change that.

Our county party wants to text everyone in the voter file the day before the election. Is that legal?

By hand through a peer-to-peer platform, generally yes under the TCPA after Duguid, with the party's name and opt-out in the message and carrier registration in place. By automated blast to people who never opted in, it risks the autodialer rule if the platform qualifies and certainly breaks carrier rules. Check the platform's own terms; many require opt-in lists for anything but P2P.

Do the TCPA rules apply to local races, not just federal ones?

Yes. The TCPA is a federal law about phone calls, not about federal elections. It applies the same way to a library district race as to a Senate race.