If you think there is too much noise about the U.S. election now, wait until next week. On Election Day, not only will every media outlet be covering the vote, but so will voters themselves who will have ample opportunity to Tweet, Digg, video, and IM the vote.
Most of these “reports” will probably consist of people telling the world that “I’m voting!” or who they just cast their vote for. Who you vote for used to be a private affair, but no more. It is almost as if your vote does not count, unless you IM or Tweet it. (But don’t worry, it does).
On the bright side, when every voter is also a potential election observer, any shenanigans can and will be instantly broadcast over the Web and quickly picked up by the mainstream media. At least there will be a clear record that can serve as a starting point for later investigation if need be. No doubt, there will be false Tweets as well.
But that’s not stopping everyone from piling on the social media election parade. For instance, you can Twitter what’s happening on Election Day by adding “#votereport” to any Tweets, and they will appear on the Twitter Vote Report, which was put together by the guys at TechPresident.
Or you can IM the vote on Meebo, which is partnering with Comedy Central to put Meebo chat rooms on The Daily Show’s Indecision2008 website.
Or you can take a camera with you and make video on election day and put it on this special YouTube VideoYourVote page (which for some odd reason is hosted out of the UK). The best of these will be rebroadcast on PBS.
Don’t like PBS? You can Digg the best election stories on this special Digg election page, which is being republished on Current.TV’s website and will be a cornerstone of Current.TV’s on-air Election Day coverage. Current.TV will also be rebroadcasting clips from 12Seconds.tv tagged “election.” Here’s a gem from 12Seconds.tv, in which video uploaders are asked to answer the question of whether their vote counts:
Still want to get involved? Then grab a widget! And put it on your MySpace page. You can choose between the Obama tax calculator, which tells you how your taxes would change under Obama’s tax plan, and this McCain-Palin widget, which is basically just a commercial (Both are embedded below). The Obama widget has been viewed more than 1.3 million times in the past three weeks, from only than 4,885 installs. The McCain-Palin widget has been installed 13,633 times, but viewed only about 53,000 times. (The SNL Palin-Hillary skit widget, in contrast, has been viewed more than 7.9 million times).
In the end, will any of this matter? Not if you don’t vote. You are gonna vote, right?
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Hopefully people won’t be exhausted with all the virtual votes before they have to do the real thing.
kool,
but did you hear about the anti ” joe the plumber” after he showed up with palin last night
check it on bloggersmosaic.com? hold on until its fire up there!
“Still want to get involved? Then grab a widget! And put it on your MySpace page.”
This sentence pinpoints all that is wrong with America and makes me weep for the future of our country.
heh, go finke!
If you haven’t noticed, our country has a bit of a voter turn out issue. Every bit of effort helps put democracy back on track.
“…put democracy back on track”? Yes, on a damn socialist track!!!
Obama is a half-black toast. Wake up idiots!!!
Ugh. The circus is dizzying. Just instate Obama and lets move on. I’m gonna try and ignore anything that I can tell *from a distance* is political from now on. All politicians lie, so just concentrate on yourself.
You can really see the problem with social news sites like Digg these days. Everything is so pro-Obama it’s borderline disgusting and anyone expressing a preference for McCain is berated and humiliated. Digg is shooting itself in the foot if it wants to get more mainstream appeal.
It’s interesting, this. Even being pro-Obama, I find the incredibly one-sided aspect of Digg a bit hard to stomach.
Fact is though, it’s just a symptom of the site’s demographic. Social news sites will always have a partisan slant until they get an equivalent number of visitors from all sides of the political spectrum.
And let’s be honest.. has any news outlet ever truly been 100% independent?
Wait, you’re saying Digg (or actually, Digg’s community of users!) is keeping itself out of the mainstream by supporting Obama?
Have you seen the polls lately?
C’mon now. The polls aren’t that uneven. It’s 49%-45%, with Obama in the lead. That seems pretty even to me. When the race is this tight, it’s clear that the country is quite polarized regardless of who wins.
One or two polls show only an advantage of only 2 points for Obama.
Take notice: the Obama camp is worried sick about the “Bradley effect” to the point of believing that for him to win the advantage must be at least 10 points…
Obama has lost already!
re Digg - its an open community, people are Digging as they see fit. go to Reddit and others if you want to see continuous examples of online communities trending pro-Obama. hmmm, i wonder if there’s a correlation?
re polls - go to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com if you want a better answer than “49-45%”…
A site on the Wetpaint network has also established itself as the best resource for reading about all the incidents of voter suppression all over the US. Check it out too, it’s been collaborating with all of these other programs to ensure the fairest and most accurate election - http://www.votersuppression.net
You say that whom you vote for used to be a private affair, but there’s a good article in The New Yorker from a few weeks’ back on what a public affair voting once was. The idea that voters wouldn’t want to stand up publicly and be counted was considered cowardly. Of course, some of those voters were intimidated and beaten, especially during Reconstruction. I’m glad we’re not going back to that…
Can Canadians vote in the American Election? Apparently I fell asleep and missed our election because when our so called leader Mr. Harper, the man who is a gentic cross between George Bush and Donald Trumps hair talks, I want to sleep. The other big party has some French guy nobody could understand and I always see a bobble head doll when I look at the NDP which is our socialist party.
The American election seems like so much more fun. You all get those cool comercials and to be honest I like the idea of Obama. Seems to me all of us in North America are fed up with the same rich old guys making their rich old cronies more rich while the rest of us suffer. And I am not picking on the US because it is the same dam crap in Canada. We just made a whole level of gov’t for the old rich people and called it a senate…
“all of us in North America” Canada is NOT in the US and you really have no clue. Canadian opinions –on anything, are worth s**t in the US.
Please shut up.
“It is almost as if your vote does not count, unless you IM or Tweet it.”
…jeez, i dont think we are there yet buddy
Election election election…We are listening about US Election everywhere even in India also.
All the media streams are making too much noise about US elections.See next week what will happen.May be all are supporting Barak Obama.Me in India also.
http://www.iboozi.com
It is amazing how all these other people from other countries want Obama to win… Bush has united the world…just in the wrong way..
It is just envy of the US: freedom, economic opportunity, and much more.
It is a love-hate thing –the amazing part is that all of you guys want to come here… [hypocrisy rules!]
Sorry, but Obama has lost already. Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com
Last time I checked, Allison Fine, the founder of Votereport was not a guy.
There is an application on Orkut called iFan that is organizing a virtual election with some very interesting results so far:
Australia Obama: 90.00% McCain: 10.00%
Brazil Obama: 79.92% McCain: 20.08%
Estonia Obama: 83.33% McCain: 16.67%
France Obama: 100.00% McCain: 0.00%
United Kingdom Obama: 84.21% McCain: 15.79%
India Obama: 81.91% McCain: 18.09%
Italy Obama: 88.89% McCain: 11.11%
Pakistan Obama: 22.22% McCain: 77.78%
Singapore Obama: 71.43% McCain: 28.57%
United States Obama: 85.88% McCain: 14.12%
iFan URL: http://www.orkut.com/Applicati.....8144150139
Sorry, but this is not only irrelevant but silly.
>Sorry, but Obama has lost already. Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com
Some people believe that voters who have a greater understanding of the candidates and issues should have a greater voice in elections.
The new Fit to Vote (http://www.fit2vote.com) site presents voters with a short fitness test on US government, politics and candidate platforms before they vote. Individual votes are weighted by test score so people with a reasonable understanding of government, politics, and candidate positions have a stronger voice in the election.
If you think you have a basic understanding of US government, politics and the candidates, come take the test and support your candidate at http://www.fit2vote.com.
I”M THE Pumpkin Head, and my vote doesn’t count….That is so hillarious.
“is voting for Barack Obama”
http://isvotingforbarackobama.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group......amp;ref=mf
Sorry, but Obama has lost already. Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com
Keep Palestinians and Muslims out of your dirty race you Racist pigs. The PLO is a legitimate “liberation” organization striving for more than 45 years to get Palestinians their lost land the extreamist jews (Israelis) stole. You dumm Republicans are looking at the world from your rear-view and have your facts and ethics switched around. Screw you, McCain, and Screw that B*tch Palin. Both are racist/traitors sob’s that will do anything to kiss Israeli asses. This really makes me wonder if they are running for presidency to serve America or to serve Israel? Go run for presidency in Israel if you so concerned about israel. We have stretched our ethics too far and we have put Israeli interests ahead of ours until we lost our ethical, economical and political leadership in the world….enough is enough. We hope that “CHANGE” will not only be limited to the economy and health care, but also our screwed -up foreign policy should be re-evaluated in order to do whats best for America, not Israel. Change = Foreign interest lobbies “AIPAC” out of D.C……….peace.
Obama has lost already. Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com
It does NOT matter what you towel heads [anywhere]. fat-ass Europeans or dumb Canadians think or say: OBAMA HAS LOST ALREADY!!!
Real Americans will never vote for a half-black socialist nobody for president. Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com.
BTW, in private, Obama and his camp are starting to feel the desperation and the agony of defeat…
The journalists that were kicked out of Obama’s plane had ruffled a few feathers when they commented on his occasional somber moods and the need “to calm people down” after Tuesday’s results.
Obama has started to realize that he will never reach the White House…
This is crowd sourcing for democracy
but did you hear about the anti ” joe the plumber” after he showed up with palin last night
check it on bloggersmosaic.com? hold on until its fire up there!
http://www.egitimbilgisi.tr.gg/
Check out Video The Vote (http://videothevote.org) - they’re a group of people who’re serious about election protection working together to document the election.
“any shenanigans [...] will be [...] quickly picked up by the mainstream media”
And then you wake up… Newsflash: mainstream media never reports the truth, actually it doesn’t even qualify as reporting…
Ho well…
Right –Obama has lost already.
Most of Americans know it: it is called the “Bradley effect” –look it up on Wikipedia.com
BTW, in private, Obama and his camp are starting to feel the desperation and the agony of defeat…
Have a look at these guys - a very nice looking mashup of twitter and youtube. Think this is a joint project of four universities and a company named Blogform
http://www.tubethevote.com
Thank you for highlighting the twitter vote story. This is a great service they are providing to all. http://www.ivotedrepublican.com
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