Before this year, I had never received a political text solicitation. But I’ve gotten around a half dozen of them in the last few months.
If you’re unfamiliar with these texts, here’s an example of one I received today:
Hi Jamey! This is Robin volunteering with X. The election is coming up quick, and Y is running for re-election…. Are you planning to vote for Y on November 6?
Now, I appreciate good marketing, and I think it’s great that people are getting involved in the political process and encouraging people to vote.
However, I really don’t don’t like getting texts or calls from solicitors unless I specifically signed up for the list. I definitely did not sign up for this list. So it’s a little annoying to get these texts. At least they’ve all arrived during waking hours.
So whenever I get such a text, I politely ask them to remove me from the list. What do you do?
Hi Jamey!
With these conversations I usually switch the roles and ask about them and whether they’re interested in politics and voting and for which party.
No matter the answer they give, I use my academic (political science) and work (civics teacher) skills to ask them the why and other questions. Not in a judgemental way but more in a curious way. I like to make people think about their choices and what they do and why they do it (I’m also a self-declared philosopher). I want to know what motivates them to vote for that party and not the others* (*multi-party – I live in the NL). I give them a challenge to convince me to vote, and vote for their party.
But Jamey, I would definitely vote for you as one of the most transparant designers/publishers out there. Huge fan and keep up the good work. If you ever find yourself in the Netherlands or Essen for that matter and want to talk about politics, philosophy and the meaning of life. I’ll be your 42.
Thanks, Seyit! I’ll take you up on that if I’m ever in the Netherlands. 🙂