A political donation programme must confirm intent and certify eligibility

JSONMarkdown

The requirementstatement

A message-originated political contribution must be answered with a message confirming the contributor's intent to give and carrying the eligibility certification — at least 18, own funds, not a foreign national, not a federal contractor.

Severityseverity
BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
When it bitesphase
Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
What is checkedobject
political donation MT body
How Ekas settles itdetectability
AI · formAI_FORM
A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria.
What the fix involvesfailureClass
Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
Who requires itauthorities
CTIA
When it appliesapplicabilityText
Applies when the use case is POLITICAL.

Why this rule existsrationale

Campaign-finance law puts the burden of establishing that a contribution is lawful on the committee receiving it, and a text has none of the surrounding form a web donation page would carry. The reply is where the certification has to live, because it is the only place the contributor can see it before the charge completes. Committees miss it because the message-originated flow feels like a confirmation receipt rather than a legal instrument, so they write it as one — and a receipt that does not ask the contributor to affirm anything leaves the committee unable to show the contribution was lawful.

How to fix itremediation

Write the reply to the donation keyword so it does two things in order: restate the amount and ask the contributor to confirm they intend to give it, then set out the four eligibility statements they are certifying by confirming. Done when the reply contains a confirmation step the contributor must answer and all four certifications are legible in the same message.

A compliant exampleexample

Riverside Shelter Action Fund: reply YES to confirm your $25 contribution. By replying YES you certify that you are at least 18, a US citizen or lawful permanent resident, using your own funds, and not a federal contractor. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out.

Common mistakespitfalls

  • Putting the certification behind a link does not satisfy this — the contributor must be able to read what they are certifying in the message they are replying to.

Rules you will hit next

Other message content rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

MSG-008Opt-in confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-009HELP reply must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-011Opt-out confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-018An MMS campaign must attach at least one sample media fileBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-019Each MMS sample file must sit under its per-type size ceilingBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-031Sample messages must be in EnglishBlockingBLOCKING

All message content rules

MSG-267 is one of 122 message content rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.

Reading the rules is the easy part.

Ekas runs every rule that gates approval, 823 of these 915, against your registration before it reaches the carrier. It reads your site, your policy pages and your opt-in the way a reviewer would, and hands you the fix, not just the verdict.

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