Crowd-sourcing to Clean up Elections and Foil Chad

Source: VoterStory Web site

Voters, listen up.  If you think your voting experience is meaningless, think again.  We all heard about the voting mishaps from the past several elections.  How could we forget the infamous "hanging chad?"   I'm pretty sure Chad and I had gym class together in seventh grade.  Anyway, with technological advances taking over the election process, new problems and concerns are troubling many voters. 

To aide in a smooth transition to this type of voting, EvolveStrategies created a nonpartisan voter complaint system at VoterStory.org.  The site is intended to "make sure that any voter who experiences a problem at the polls has a way to tell their story and get help."  Basically how it works, is that the VoterStory widget can be placed on any Web site.  Voters can then fill out a simple online form documenting their incident, and then this information is sent to a main database.  This information is then gathered and sent to the proper authorities who will hopefully take care of the problem.   Not only will this useful information help in the big November 7th elections, VoterStory also hopes the information can be addressed and be useful for future elections. 

If words aren't enough for you to express your voting experience, you might want to turn to YouthNoise.   Youth with access to video phones can document their voting experience and have it posted online.  YouthNoise is asking voters to "veek" and send videos with either short interviews about what brings fellow voters to the polls, as well as other footage to document their experiences.  Youth voters can also send text messages that will also be posted online.  Messages can be sent to vote@veeker.com.

With these two technologies in place and many more to come, it looks like the voting process is in for some major changes in the near future.  We'll have to wait and see what effects they might have, but one thing is for certain:  Chad probably won't be allowed to vote anymore. 

Comments

[Kemble K. Pope]

We don't care how you vote - Republican, Democrat, Green or Libertarian. We do care that your vote counts! Use your cell phone to document any voting irregularities (there's bound to be some with all of the new and untested technology) and send them to vote@veeker.com.

[Kemble K. Pope]

I just stopped by to offer a followup on the Veeker/YouthNoise project, VeekTheVote 2006 that you featured above.

In just a few days after launch, we received over 750 veeks from average Americans from all regions of the nations. These veeks featured polling places (and irregularities therein), poll workers, activists, non-voters, and people just talking about their experiences and their motivations to vote. It was a very richly textured display of the American response to Election Day 2006.

A Member of Congress took some of her precious time (she's now a senior leader in the Majority Party) to offer her congratulations. "I appreciate the work that activists from across the country, like those on VeekTheVote.com, have done to identify existing problems, and to help protect the rights that we all enjoy," states recently re-elected U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) about Veek the Vote 2006.

I think that you were right on the money when you posted, "it looks like the voting process is in for some major changes in the near future".