Compliance

Political Email and SMS Compliance for Texas Campaigns

Your campaign answers to several sets of rules at once, and one careless send can cost you trust with voters, carriers and inbox providers. Every email, text and call we run through our voter outreach services goes through the same checks first. We work alongside your treasurer or counsel, and here is how the pieces fit.

Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253

Years of Experience

0 +

Businesses We've Helped

0 +

Websites Designed, SEO Optimized and Maintained

0 +

4.9

Google Rating, Certified Google Partner

First Place triple honors, Best of West Houston 2025. More than $1M in annual PPC managed. Every service delivered in-house, and our original 1998 client is still with us.

The Rules

What rules does a political campaign have to follow for email and texts?

Campaign messaging sits under four separate sets of rules. They come from different places, and they do not cover for each other. Passing one check does not mean you passed the others.

Nothing here is legal advice. Ask your treasurer or legal counsel to confirm how each rule fits your race, whether you are running in Fort Bend County or statewide.

Email: CAN-SPAM practices and inbox rules

CAN-SPAM covers commercial email, and purely political messages generally fall outside it. Inbox providers apply their own standards to political mail too. We follow CAN-SPAM practices on every send and meet inbox provider requirements for authentication and easy unsubscribes.

Calls and texts: the TCPA and FCC

The TCPA, enforced by the FCC, sets consent rules for autodialed and prerecorded calls and texts. Manual person-to-person texts are treated differently from autodialed ones. Mobile phones and landlines follow different rules for prerecorded calls.

Carriers: 10DLC registration

Carriers expect anyone texting voters from a standard 10-digit number to register with The Campaign Registry, both as a brand and as a campaign. The political use case opens with a Campaign Verify token. This is an industry rule, separate from the law.

Texas: disclosure and voter data

The Texas Election Code requires a disclosure on political advertising that contains express advocacy. It also makes commercial use of registrar voter data a Class A misdemeanor. Both shape how we write messages and how we handle lists.

Opt-Outs

How should a campaign handle unsubscribes and STOP replies?

Treat every stop request as final, no matter where it arrives. We keep one shared opt-out and suppression list across email, text and calls. Every send checks it first.

Voters do not think in channels. Someone who replied STOP to a text and then gets a robocall from the same campaign feels ignored. A single list prevents that and keeps complaints down with carriers and inbox providers.

The rules point the same way. Under FCC rules, people can opt out of calls and texts in any reasonable way, from replying STOP to simply telling a volunteer. For email, every message carries a clear unsubscribe, including the one-click option major inbox providers expect, and we honor it promptly.

When a voter opts out, we record the date, the channel and how they asked. That record protects your campaign if a question ever comes up.

Opt-outs also affect delivery. High complaint rates hurt inbox placement, and anyone can forward an unwanted text to 7726 to report it. The mechanics of sending at scale are on our bulk email for political campaigns page.

One list, every channel

Disclosures

What disclosures do campaign emails, texts and calls need?

Every channel has a spot where your campaign identifies itself. We write those spots into templates, so no one has to remember them on a busy night before early voting.

Email footers

Our campaign email footers carry an accurate sender name, a valid physical postal address and a clear unsubscribe link. Subject lines tell the truth about what is inside. If a message qualifies as political advertising under Texas Election Code Sec. 255.001, the footer also labels it that way and names whoever paid for it, the authorizing political committee or the candidate.

Our political email marketing team writes within those limits from the first draft.

Texts and text landing pages

A text has little room, so every word counts. Your messages identify your campaign, give a way to opt out and, where Texas law calls for it, carry a short disclosure line. Links in a text go to a landing page on your campaign website that repeats the disclosure and explains your texting terms.

Our web design team builds and maintains those pages, so the page and the message always match. See our political text messaging overview for how the texts themselves are planned.

Call scripts and recordings

Per FCC rules, every prerecorded message has to open by naming who is calling and has to provide a phone number during or after the message. Our scripts do both. Based on an FCC ruling, AI-generated voices are treated as artificial voices under the TCPA. That means a synthetic voice gets no special pass.

Political calls are not covered by the National Do Not Call Registry, but a voter’s request to stop calling still has to be honored. Our political robocall services page shows how we script and plan calls.

Spanish-language versions

Spanish-language emails, texts and call scripts are available. Each translated version carries the same sender identification, opt-out language and disclosure as the English one. A missing disclosure in Spanish is still a missing disclosure, so your counsel should review both versions.

Why Vertical Web

What makes Vertical Web a safe pair of hands for compliance?

Compliance is mostly discipline: the same checks, done the same way, on every send. Here is why campaigns hand that discipline to us.

We teach this material

Beth Guide has been teaching business owners since 2003, through the SBA, the University of Houston SBDC, Lone Star College and HCC, and Fox 26 brings her on as a technology expert. Hire the teachers other marketers learn from, and the rules get explained in plain English.

One list, one team

Email, texting, calls, your website and hosting all run through our in-house team. That is why one suppression list actually works here. No vendor points at another vendor when a voter asks why they are still hearing from you.

Accountable since 1998

We have been in business since 1998, and our first client from that year still works with us. A 4.9 Google rating, Certified Google Partner status and First Place triple honors in Best of West Houston 2025 back that up. We plan to be here when your records are needed.

No risky shortcuts

Overseeing more than a million dollars of paid search a year shows us exactly what a contact is worth, and how tempting shortcuts get. If a list, a send or a script puts your campaign at risk, we will talk you out of it.

Record Keeping

What records should a campaign keep for texting and email compliance?

Good records turn a complaint into a quick answer instead of a crisis. We keep four kinds of records for every program we run, and we share them with your treasurer or counsel on request.

Where consent came from

For any channel that needs prior consent, like autodialed texts or prerecorded calls to mobile phones, we record how and where each person agreed. That means the sign-up form, the date and the wording they saw. If consent came from your own events or website, we log that source too.

Opt-out logs

Every unsubscribe and STOP request goes into a log with the channel, the date and how it arrived. The log feeds the shared suppression list. It also shows that your campaign honored each request.

Message archives

We keep copies of what went out: the emails, the text templates, the call scripts and the disclosure each one carried. When someone asks what your campaign said and when, you have the answer in writing.

Who stays responsible

Hiring a vendor does not move responsibility off your committee. CAN-SPAM makes that point for commercial email: you stay responsible when you hire someone to send. We apply the same principle to every campaign send, which is why we keep these records for you and share them openly.

Pre-Send Checklist

What should you check before every campaign email, text or call?

This is the checklist we run before anything leaves our hands. It is different from the one-time setup covered in our political 10DLC guide and our Campaign Verify registration help. This list applies to every single send.

Suppression checked

The send list has been scrubbed against the shared opt-out list and recent bounces. Anyone who asked to stop is out, on every channel. We run this check again right before launch.

Disclosure in place

Every message that counts as political advertising carries the Texas disclosure. We check the English and Spanish versions separately. Your treasurer or counsel approves the standard wording once.

Sender identified

Emails show an accurate from name and a truthful subject line. Texts name the campaign. Recorded calls state who is calling at the start and give a phone number.

Consent matches the method

Autodialed texts and prerecorded calls to mobiles go only to people who gave prior consent. Manual person-to-person texts follow their own rules. We confirm the list and the sending method belong together.

Opt-out works

The unsubscribe link, the STOP reply and the call opt-out have all been tested. One-click unsubscribe is live on email. HELP replies name the campaign and a way to reach you.

Authentication and registration current

Email is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Texting numbers are registered, with the Campaign Verify token in place. Voter data is being used for political purposes only.

Straight answers

Email and SMS Compliance for Campaigns: Frequently Asked Questions

Does CAN-SPAM apply to political campaign emails?

CAN-SPAM covers email whose primary purpose is commercial advertising or promotion. Purely political messages are generally outside that scope. But Inbox providers still apply their own standards to political mail. So we follow CAN-SPAM practices on every send: accurate headers, truthful subject lines, a real postal address and an obvious way to opt out that we honor. Confirm the specifics for your campaign with your counsel.

Are political calls exempt from the Do Not Call list?

Political calls fall outside the National Do Not Call Registry, which is aimed at telemarketing sales calls. That does not mean anything goes. FCC consent rules still apply to prerecorded and autodialed calls, recorded messages must identify the caller and give a phone number, and any voter who asks you to stop calling has to be honored.

How do inbox providers decide whether our email reaches voters?

The big three, Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook, expect bulk senders to prove who they are with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. They also expect an easy way out, including one-click unsubscribe. They also watch complaints, and a high complaint rate hurts delivery. Political mail gets no special pass. We set up authentication on your sending domain and keep lists clean so fewer people hit the spam button.

Who is responsible if a vendor sends a noncompliant message for us?

Assume your committee is. For commercial email, CAN-SPAM says plainly that you stay responsible when you hire someone to send. The safe approach is to treat every channel that way. Pick a partner who keeps records, shows you templates before launch and answers questions directly. That is how we work, and your treasurer gets copies on request.

Do Spanish-language messages need the same disclosures?

Treat them with the same care as English messages. We write Spanish-language emails, texts and call scripts with the same sender identification, opt-out language and disclosure line as the English versions. Have your treasurer or counsel review the translated disclosure wording too, so both versions say what they need to say.

What happens when a voter reports our text as spam?

Forwarding a text to 7726 is how a voter reports it as unwanted. Reports like that signal a problem to carriers and can affect how your traffic is treated. Prevention is simple: text people who expect to hear from you, identify your campaign, make stopping easy and honor every request. We watch for warning signs and adjust before a small problem grows.

How does voter data fit into a compliance program?

Voter data gets political use only. Texas Election Code Sec. 18.009 treats commercial use of registrar voter information as a Class A misdemeanor. We keep campaign lists away from any business use and never share them with another campaign. More detail is on our Texas voter data page.

Is this page legal advice?

No. This page explains how we run campaign messaging and which rules we plan around. It is general information, not legal advice, and rules change. Check each requirement with your treasurer or legal counsel before acting on it. We are glad to work directly with them and share our templates and records.

Send with confidence, not guesswork

Let us carry the checklists so your team can carry the message. We will review your current email, texting and call setup and show you where the gaps are. Schedule a consultation and we will start with your next send.

Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253 | info@verticalweb.com