Political campaign texting: rules, Campaign Verify and approval

Political campaign texting is legal in the US. To do it on registered business routes, you need a verified political brand (usually through Campaign Verify), a registered 10DLC campaign, and consent from the people you text. On Ready there is one more step before your first message: email support@tryready.com, describe what you plan to send, and wait for our written reply. Signing up and registering is not enough by itself.

This post covers the rest of the job. It explains what carriers check for political traffic, how consent applies to campaigns, what a send costs on our Standard rate, and where Ready fits or doesn't. It is not legal advice. Election law differs by state and by race, so a campaign lawyer should review your disclaimers and consent language.

Why political texts get extra scrutiny

Carriers treat political messaging as a special category. The reason is the traffic pattern. Political senders tend to:

• Send to very large lists in short bursts, often right before a deadline or election day
• Use phone numbers from voter files and purchased lists, which are not opt-ins
• Draw a lot of spam complaints, because recipients often don't recognize the sender

Carriers see those complaint spikes, so political traffic gets filtered harder than an appointment reminder or an order update. Registration gets you onto the route. It does not protect you from content filtering if recipients start reporting you. We cover that gap in approved but still filtered.

For the same reason, our acceptable use policy requires written approval before any political or fundraising appeal goes out. We want to see the use case, the list source and the sample messages before traffic starts. That review protects your sending reputation and ours.

Political campaign texting rules: the short list

These are the rules that matter most in practice. Each gets more detail below.

1. Verify the political entity. Campaigns, parties and PACs usually verify through Campaign Verify before registering a political 10DLC campaign.
2. Register the brand and the campaign. Unregistered 10DLC traffic gets carrier-filtered.
3. Text only people who consented or who texted you first. A voter file phone number is not consent.
4. Identify yourself in every first message, and include whatever "paid for by" disclaimer your jurisdiction requires.
5. Honor STOP immediately and everywhere, across every campaign and every number you use.
6. Respect quiet hours in the recipient's local time. Some states are stricter than the federal baseline.
7. Keep your own consent records: who opted in, when, where and with what wording.

Campaign Verify: what it is and when you need it

Campaign Verify is a nonpartisan nonprofit that confirms a political sender is who it claims to be. This covers federal, state and local candidates, parties and PACs. After you pass verification, you receive a token. The 10DLC registration uses that token to approve the political use case.

How it fits with 10DLC registration

The order looks like this:

1. Apply to Campaign Verify. Use the committee's legal name and the filing details (FEC or state) exactly as they appear on official records.
2. Receive the verification token. Campaign Verify charges its own fee and sets its own validity period, so check their current terms rather than relying on an old blog post.
3. Email support@tryready.com with the token. Ready does not take it in the app or the API yet, so we file the political campaign with you.
4. Wait for carrier approval. On Ready, most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Plan for both waits back to back. If your first fundraising deadline is next Friday, you are already late. Start verification as soon as the committee is filed.

Common mismatches that cause rejections

• The brand name doesn't match the committee name on file
• The sample messages don't show the sender's name or the opt-out language
• The described use case says "donor updates" but the samples are persuasion texts to strangers
• The website on the registration has no privacy policy or no SMS opt-in disclosure

Picking a use case that matches what you actually send is half the battle. See matching use case to what you send for that logic, and 10DLC rules and requirements for the full list of what carriers check.

Consent: where most campaigns get into trouble

Political speech has strong First Amendment protection, and many campaigns assume that covers texting too. It doesn't cover everything. The TCPA still applies to automated texts to cell phones. Carrier rules for 10DLC also expect opt-in consent, whatever the legal debate about autodialer definitions. Statutory TCPA damages run $500 to $1,500 per text, which adds up quickly on a list of thousands.

What counts as consent in practice

• A supporter entered their mobile number on your site, next to clear SMS opt-in language
• Someone texted your keyword to your number. Treat this as a conversation they started, and confirm what they'll receive.
• A donor checked an SMS opt-in box at checkout

What does not count

• Phone numbers appended to a voter file
• A list bought or "shared" from another campaign or vendor
• A number someone gave for a different purpose, such as event check-in, without SMS disclosure

Our stance is simple. Reach cold contacts by phone and mail. Use SMS for supporters who opted in or who replied. We won't cost out a cold voter-file campaign here, because we won't approve one.

Who keeps the record

When you send in bulk or through the API on Ready, you confirm that recipients agreed to receive texts. We record that attestation: who sent, to how many, and when. That is an audit trail of your promise. It is not a per-contact consent record. Ready does not store each recipient's opt-in time, the wording they saw or the page URL. A keyword reply doesn't create one either. Your signup form, CRM or donor platform has to keep that per-contact record. If you get a complaint, that record is the one that matters. (A contact who signs up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page is the exception: Ready stores that sign-up, with the time, IP address and exact wording, and support@tryready.com can send you a copy.)

What Ready handles and what it doesn't

We make Ready, so here is what it actually does for a political sender once we've approved the use case.

The written OK applies to every way you send on Ready. That includes bulk campaigns, the API, GoHighLevel and a blue line. No channel skips it.

Sending through the API

If your campaign tooling sends programmatically, a bulk send to your opted-in list looks like this:

POST https://api.tryready.com/v1/messages/bulk
X-API-Key: <key>
Idempotency-Key: <uuid>

{"to": ["+12125550199", "+15550100123"], "body": "Jordan Lee for Council: early voting opens Sat at City Hall. Reply STOP to opt out.", "consent_attested": true}

Ready refuses opted-out numbers up front and doesn't charge for them. A bulk call still answers 200, so read data.failed and each results[].error to see who was refused and why, and resend only the ones the error says to resend. If a recipient is in quiet hours, the text is held and only charged once it sends. See the bulk messages docs and the messages docs for details. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is refused and must be resent; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.

What a political send costs on Ready

Our Standard rate is $0.0075 per segment, plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment. That applies to texts you send and replies you receive. The figures below exclude the optional $0.003-per-segment scrub and validation surcharges.

Example 1: GOTV reminder to 5,000 opted-in supporters. Assume a 150-character message with no emoji. That is 1 segment.

• 5,000 × 1 × $0.0075 = $38
• Plus 5,000 × $0.0045 in carrier fees
• If you switch on the scrub: 5,000 × $0.005 = $25 more

Example 2: the same list, but with an emoji added (assumed 175 characters). One emoji switches the message to unicode encoding, so 175 characters becomes 3 segments.

• 5,000 × 3 × $0.0075 = $113
• Plus 15,000 × $0.0045 in carrier fees

The emoji tripled the bill. Political copy often packs in a lot, so keep an eye on the segment count. Every segment is billed.

Example 3: replies. If 20% of the 5,000 reply with one segment each, that's 1,000 × $0.0075 = $8, plus 1,000 × $0.0045.

Ready isn't the lowest per-segment price. A raw carrier API like Twilio costs less per message. If you have engineers and only need a pipe, that may be the right choice. What Ready adds is registration handled in-app, opt-out and quiet-hours enforcement, an inbox and the dialer on one bill. 10DLC cost breaks down every fee.

Throughput on election week

A fresh standard campaign with no vetting typically gets around 1 to 4 segments per second. At an assumed 3 segments per second, 15,000 segments takes about 83 minutes. T-Mobile also caps brands daily by trust score, starting at roughly 2,000 messages a day for the lowest tier. If you're planning a big final-week push, register early and look at your trust score before the deadline. Don't find out on the day.

A practical pre-launch checklist

• Committee filed and Campaign Verify token in hand
• Email to support@tryready.com sent, with list source, sample messages and expected volume, and our written reply received
• Political registration arranged with Ready support (most approvals take 2 to 7 days)
• Signup forms show SMS opt-in language, and your system stores per-contact consent
• Every first message names the campaign and includes "Reply STOP to opt out"
• Disclaimer language checked by counsel
• Segment count checked on every template, with emoji used deliberately or not at all

The takeaway

Political campaign texting works when the list is opted-in, the sender is verified and the carrier registration matches what you actually send. Start Campaign Verify early, keep your own consent records, and get our written approval before the first appeal. If that fits your campaign, email support@tryready.com with your plan and wait for our reply. Then use your first 20 free one-to-one texts to test your templates on your own phones before you register. You can create an account here.

FAQ

Is political texting exempt from the TCPA? Not entirely. Political speech is protected, but automated texts to cell phones still raise TCPA consent questions. Carriers also expect opt-in consent on 10DLC regardless. Statutory damages run $500 to $1,500 per text, so get consent and talk to counsel.

Do I need Campaign Verify to text voters? To register a political 10DLC campaign, campaigns, parties and PACs generally need a Campaign Verify token. Check Campaign Verify's site for current eligibility and fees.

Can I text numbers from the voter file? Don't. An appended voter file number is not consent. Use phone and mail for cold outreach, and use SMS for supporters who opted in or replied.

How long does approval take on Ready? There are two steps. First, our written OK, which you request by emailing support@tryready.com. Then carrier registration, where most approvals take 2 to 7 days. Allow time for Campaign Verify before both.

Does Ready store my supporters' consent records? Only for supporters who sign up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page (time, IP address and exact wording). For everyone else, Ready records your attestation for each bulk send and each API send that sets consent_attested: who sent, to how many, and when. Your signup form or CRM needs to keep each person's opt-in time, wording and page.