Interestingly, Fred's sometime oracle railed against the calls this past Monday. I share what I replied to Bob Lefsetz:
"Wow. A max three calls in a day I would think makes sense.
What you describe is campaign consultants over killing on messaging. There are practical limits we follow. Much follows from the IE -- independent expenditure plague. It just becomes a way to get rich using folks who should be smarter. So it cost only 2-3 pennies per most calls before mark up so they are popular. In contrast an 8x10 self mailer costs around 65-75 cents to print, sort and mail using a union shop to print and sort. Plus you can design, record and place a robo to go within 45 minutes after you approve the recording."
A fellow consultant emailed me after sharing Lefsetz's email that they are a waste of $$. Personally I like to use them for GOTV because of the lost cost. Rather than live calls to juice turnout at points during election day (late morning; mid afternoon, early eve), I prefer the much lower cost robo.
Sometimes, as in a website placed political Ad that gets limited TV placement because of the high cost of such ads (except on some cable shows), the robos can generate a news story.
As much as one might complain of the political calls, some days I receive 2-3 calls seeking to replace my gas and/ or electric and/ or phone services.
Moreover, another Gothamite I am close to and work with in the political realm shared this: "If you're over 60 you're inundated with reverse mortgage, term insurance, medicare supplemental insurance, stair elevators, walk in bath tubs, credit card offers, phony home improvement…the list goes on and on and is not "seasonal"."
So folks, you can complain about political robos but in the course of a year, more non political calls plague us.

Thank goodness for caller ID

I just had this conversation yesterday. It really seems out if control this year. And many of them are coming up as local numbers on my caller id. It's just been too invasive this year.

I feel your pain....and I mean PAIN!
What an invasion, not to mention filling my inboxes and snail mail....
Vote and get this over with!

Why are these calls permitted to those of us on the Do Not Call list? My phone has been ringing off the hook with these calls.

As far as I know, political calls are the exception to the Do Not Call List as are charities. One of the reasons I am not on that list. I second Fred's statement of thank god for caller ID. The bombardment is not just on the phone for me but on TV as well. The horrible disparaging commercials are nauseating, non stop gibberish. How could supposedly intelligent people hope to win voters over with this? It makes me feel that I want to vote for no one but of course that is not an option. ALL candidates that have advertised with their horrible ads seem unworthy of our votes.

Donna Levine wrote
all I can say is thank goodness its election day and thank you to whomever invented the answering machine. Its interesting that the messages are recording on my machine as normally with regular calls if they are recordings they generally disconnect when the machine picks up.

Welcome to my world. Very few people use the telephone much anymore, and rely more on e-mail, texting and other "modern" communications. And then, there's no DNC for small businesses. We get fifty calls a day from all manner of service providers or people soliciting our custody of assets. Each has a pitch that is congruent to everyone else's, and the worst is a recording that I immediately hang up on. We've made it a policy to refuse to do business with any firm that uses robo calls.

Kind of reminds me of the US mail: We have all of our bills on electronic payment, and when I go to the front door to collect mail that's delivered, I say, "I'm going to go and bring in the junk-mail." Too true, I'm afraid.

Real simple solution. Every time a political operative calls, determine what candidate they are supporting and tell them that their intrusive phone call convinced you to go the other way. Tell them it is disrespectful and our political system needs a greater focus on decency. If enough people do it, it will eventually get the message across. After all, they got Dr. Pepper at McDonald's didn't they (a story for another day, lol).