Yesterday I was phone banking for a candidate in the county where I am living. I’ve been at this for weeks since the election has heated up and people started to take notice. But yesterday added a new dimension to the experience which I had not quite expected. In retrospect, I should have. A group of us were calling late Sunday afternoon and calling people on the other side of the political divide to find those undecided voters. Most of the previous phone banking I had participated in had not used lists that were so overtly from the opposite party.

At the end of the two hour shift, us phone bankers gathered to discuss results. The discussed centered on how most people were not picking up or had left their voice mail machines on to avoid disruption. However, and thankfully, two women did mention that the verbal abuse was offensive and they were shaken. The male phone bankers did not have the same intensity of response as the women did when they reached someone on the phone. My husband’s interactions were not too bad either. I had one nasty exchange but clearly not as bad as the two women who were visibly upset. Their responses shook me too. They asked the phone banking host why we were even making calls at this point in the election cycle when the incivility to civility ratio was going to be so high. I had to ask myself the same question. The host did a good job explaining whey these calls were needed but suggested that those who did not want the potential abuse to beg off calling again when we were provided with this type of list.

I have a suggestion to voter phone banking software developers. This comes from the work I started over 10 years ago on Civility in America (see here for the last survey) and how the reputation of America is being harmed by the high levels of incivility. I recommend that in addition to all the ways you can record a contact as a phone banker (answering machine, no one home, nonworking number, disconnected, refusal, etc.), please add a box to be ticked that says “Abusive.” A for Abusive. This way the person making the call has some control over the unseemly experience and can take back their dignity and self-worth. And, also importantly, this option could insure that this person is not called again. These voter lists get reused over and over again and these uncivil and rude people should be weeded out.

Ironically, I came up with the idea to study civility in America in 2009 when then President Obama said that he had a goal of making civility interesting enough to the American public so that they would practice it more often. This seems quaint at this point in time and after all we have witnessed as a nation. God help us.