Texts, calls from political campaigns increase as Election Day nears

Voters across Minnesota are receiving an influx of text messages and calls as Election Day nears.

The outreach is only expected to intensify over the weekend, with Election Day on Tuesday.

It’s an effort by campaigns and organizations to fundraise and mobilize support. It’s also raising questions about data privacy.

Some messages cite personal voting history or the status of absentee ballots.

“They cannot get the content of your ballot; that is protected,” explained David Schultz, a political science and legal studies professor at Hamline University. “Requests for absentee ballots, if you’ve already returned your absentee ballots, if you’ve already voted early, are you registered to vote or not? All of that is public information.”

He said there is some public benefit to the transparency.

“The reason why that’s public information is to a...