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Editorial: Robocalls need to be ID'd
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Although election season is just past, the time is right to fix an oversight to provide voters with important information in order to hold candidates, political parties and special interest groups accountable in the next silly season.
For years federal and state law have required notice — in print on campaign mailings, verbally or on the screen in radio and TV spots — of whoever sponsored a political advertisement. But there is a rapidly growing venue in which no notice is required, but needed: robocalls.
More and more often lately these annoying recorded messages are stretching the limits of credibility and, in some cases slander, when they deliver messages that typically are negative — criticizing a candidate for this or that misdeed. One call that reached our ears the week before Election Day took on the "liars for hire" that were attempting to "steal your vote" by "smear[ing] local candidates door to door." The electorate should know who paid for that garbage. The target of the ad is irrelevant. Whoever or whatever the target of such vitriol, the sponsor should have the courage to identify themselves or be forced to.
Congress, Albany, are you listening?
And a suggestion for those who receive such calls: If the speaker does not identify the sponsor, or worse says they are calling from the deceitfully named Committee for Apple Pie and Motherhood, either disregard anything said or, better yet, vote for whoever they just tried to trash.
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