Robo reBELLion

Lots of folks in NYC are running for elective office and the primary is this coming Tuesday.  I have a serious question.  What think tank; what defective great mind, has it that electoral robo-calls are effective?  I suppose they are cost-effective but actual positive influence has to be close to nil.  They are disruptive, usually ill-timed and well, hey, basically full-of-(sh)it in content.  They are a negative blight on the already lurid landscape of electioneering.  Even if some politicians forego their use, they are still brushed by the same blight.  I never answer my phone at this time of year because it is so self-defeating and there is no defense because you cannot make a response or request deletion from their list(s).

This weekend is running true to form.  My answering machine covers for me but I still wish there was some attachment, or app, one can buy that monitors the content of a call and, if it is identified as robo, some kind of thunderbolt can be returned through the wires (or ether) that will burn out someone’s calling system, if not their actual brains.
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Update 9/10/13, Election Day:  Just before I went to vote this morning I got a live message on my machine from an "Anybody But Christine Quinn" group which is self explanatory.  WTF?  The voice was female and passionate and it made me wonder what personal vendetta was the basis of her activism in this manner.  And why does this group have my home phone number?  Being the person I am, her call immediately cemented my intent to vote for Quinn.

Further to this Update, I just returned from my polling place and, my exhortation to the sweet, probably fictional, panda in the sky, I had to use a paper ballot!  I new that last years electronic system has been abandoned in favor of the older lever-driven voting booth but, in my precinct at least, these booths were nonfunctioning.  Another WTF is certainly in order.  Hopefully some official outrage will ensue.