In the last few days before Tuesday's election, lots of folks in the US are making calls in support of their favorite candidates, nationally and locally.

In the old days, you'd go to a phone bank, usually in a local campaign headquarters somewhere, and make calls using provided landlines. These days, it's bring your own mobile phone, often to someone's house, or even from the privacy of your own internet connection.

As much as we like participatory democracy, calling total strangers on your cell phone is just a bad idea. You can use Burner to prevent people from calling you back, with the added benefit of being able to get a local area code (if you're calling out of state) too -- which might make people more willing to answer a ring from a number they don't recognize.

Here's how to do it:

Download Burner from the iTunes App Store
Open it and go through the text message confirmation to set it up
Hit the big, orange "Create Burner" button.
Choose a Burner type -- probably a Standard or Large Burner to give you enough minutes. You may need to buy credits to cover this.
Enter a Burner name, such as "Election calls"
Choose an area code. If you know where you're going to be calling, choose one there (e.g. 303 for Denver, CO). You may have to try a few to get one you want.
Hit the big, orange "Create Burner" button. You'll now have created a Burner phone number.
Hit the "Back to numbers menu" at the bottom of the confirmation screen.
You'll see a list of your active Burner numbers -- if this is your first time using Burner, you'll see only the one you just created. Tap it.
Hit the button that says "Call" at the bottom of the screen, enter the first phone number from your call sheet, and hit the "Call from Burner" button. The app will automatically open up your phone's dialler, dial our call bridge, and connect you to the person you're trying to call -- who will only see your Burner number, not your real number.
That's the easy part -- now you have to talk to a total stranger about politics!
After you hang up, open up the Burner app again and repeat steps 10 and 11 for the rest of your call sheet.
When you're done, congratulate yourself and your fellow callers on your good citizenship, and then hit the big red "Burn" button at the bottom of the number's screen. Tap through the confirmation screens, and the number will be gone for good!

You can see a live demo of how Burner works, including some other functions like SMS and changing Burner settings, in this video:

Most importantly -- get out there and VOTE!