NORTH MUDSWORTH, OHIO —
An Ohio voter who receives about 40 political fundraising texts a day from both parties has begun replying to all of them with “new phone who dis”, describing it as “the only form of civic participation I have energy for”.
Denise Kowalczyk, 44, said the messages began in the spring and have grown steadily more urgent. “Every single one says it’s the final deadline,” she said. “There have been about 300 final deadlines. Democracy has ended more times than my favourite TV show.”
The texts, which come from both sides in roughly equal numbers, typically warn that the election will be lost unless she donates $5 within the hour, and are signed by people she has never met who call her by her first name.
“One said ‘Denise, I’m personally begging you’,” she said. “The other side said ‘Denise, this is our last chance’. They both sound like ex-boyfriends.”
A spokesperson for the invented Office for Urgent Requests said fundraising texts were “a vital part of modern campaigning”. “Some people find them annoying,” she said. “Those people are not our target. Our target is the one person in a thousand who panics and gives $5. That person is a hero.”
Kowalczyk says she will vote anyway, as she always does. The texts will not stop on Wednesday.
They never stop on Wednesday.
This article is satire. The people, places, quotes and studies described are fictional.