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SACRAMENTO (AP) ― The call invariably comes at night—typically right at dinnertime or prime time: A prerecorded voice promotes a candidate or initiative, or issues a stinging criticism of the opposition.

Either way, the so-called robocalls are as annoying as they are ubiquitous at election time.

They also happen to be illegal in California. That has hardly stopped campaigns and candidates from exploiting legal loopholes to use them, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He has recorded one himself, and the redistricting initiative he supports, Proposition 11, also is using them. Dozens of others, including legislative and congressional candidates, are ramping up their use of automated calls in the final days of the campaign.

Technically, it is illegal for campaigns and companies to send automated messages to Californians unless a live person introduces the call and asks for permission to play the message.

Robocalls that come from out-of-state call centers aren't subject to the rule.

The vast majority of campaigns—if not all of them—use that tactic because the agency that oversees telephone communications, the California Public Utilities Commission, can regulate only calls initiated inside the state.

The commission does virtually nothing to enforce its own regulations.
In a prerecorded message this week on behalf of San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson, Schwarzenegger tells voters in the 15th Assembly District in the eastern San Francisco Bay area that Wilson's "financial management skills are sorely needed in the Legislature."

Wilson's campaign manager, Matthew Del Carlo, makes no apologies. He notes that Wilson's opponent, Democrat Joan Buchanan, also is using robocalls.

"It's a great way of letting people know about Abram Wilson and that the governor's endorsing him," Del Carlo said. "If they weren't effective, we wouldn't be doing them."

Del Carlo said he did not know where the calls originate.

The Abram campaign paid a company called politicalcalling.com to
make its robocalls. A man who answered the phone at the company, based in Davis, a university town just west of Sacramento, said all its calls are generated outside California. He declined to give his name or make a company spokesman available.

The Buchanan campaign has paid a Lowell, Mass.-based firm for its robocalls, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State's office.

Because they're automated, the calls are a relatively cheap way to reach large numbers of voters. Campaigns also use them to target particular groups of voters that might be inclined to support their candidate.

Former state Sen. Dede Alpert questions whether the calls work. Alpert, who is campaigning for Proposition 11, said she has recorded many of the messages herself.

"I think that mostly they're annoying," she said. "I'm not sure they're terribly effective."

Yet Alpert said she was among those who did not know the calls aren't allowed by the Public Utilities Commission unless they're made by call centers located out of state.

She said clarity is needed in the rules governing the calls.

There also is little evidence that the Public Utilities Commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, does anything to intervene when consumers complain.

Commission spokeswoman Susan Carothers said the agency has had 45 "consumer contacts" this year about robocalls. She said the callers are urged to contact their telephone carrier about the problem. She said she could not immediately provide further information about the consumers' complaints.

The agency has had only one formal investigation into robocalls, a 2004 complaint from an SBC customer over an illegal automated call, Carothers said. SBC California was ordered to "contact the offending party"—an unnamed political campaign—to educate its contractor about the rules.

"Robocallers are not regulated companies. The fact that commercial businesses and political-nonprofit organizations generate the calls (quite possibly out of state) instead of the carriers that we regulate makes enforcement a challenge," Carothers said in a statement.

California law allows a fine of up to $500 or disconnection of a phone line for violations.

Robocalls are getting attention this year for reasons beyond regulatory concerns.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was criticized for using automated calls in swing states linking Democrat Barack Obama to former 1960s radical William Ayers.

And in California's 1st Congressional District, which stretches from north of Sacramento to the state's northern coastline, about 100,000 would-be voters received a breathy, sexually suggestive robocall this week from the campaign of long-shot Republican challenger Zane Starkewolf, 27.

In a whispering voice, a woman urged voters to back Starkewolf, saying U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat, has "been a bad boy." The message ended with a climactic "Vote YES for Zane!"

In the 4th Congressional District race in Northern California, Democrat Charlie Brown filed a complaint Thursday over robocalls from the campaign of Republican Tom McClintock.

The complaint to the Federal Election Commission accused McClintock of failing to include a federally required disclaimer that states who paid for the automated call. McClintock spokesman Bill George dismissed the complaint as "a desperate ploy."

Paul Hefner, a spokesman for the campaign opposing the redistricting initiative, criticized robocalls from the Schwarzenegger-backed campaign—even if all campaigns do it. He said Schwarzenegger should be held to the highest standard.

"The governor is paying for those calls that are both misleading and illegal on the face of it," he said.

Proposition 11 spokeswoman Molly Weedn said the campaign's calls are not illegal.

"Our calls weren't subject to PUC jurisdiction because they originated out of state," Weedn said. She could not say where the calls originated.

Hefner's own firm, Polka Consulting, has taken advantage of the same legal loophole. Earlier this year, its campaign to recall Republican state Sen. Jeff Denham paid a Jackson, Miss., company more than $30,000 to make automated calls.

Hefner acknowledged the contradiction. He said the firm has since stopped making robocalls after learning they are prohibited unless they are made out of state.

"I'm doing four campaigns this year and we're not doing robocalls for a single one," he said.

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