Twitter Vote Report

Using Twitter Vote Report, voters visiting the polls on November 4th (Election Day) may communicate short (140 characters or fewer) messages, sharing their experiences and resources with one another. The idea is that Twitter - described as "a one-to-one and one-to-many and many-to-many communications powerhouse available to anyone with a cell phone in his or her pocket" - can enable people to communicate on the spot about constraints that may hamper even the most motivated of would-be voters, such as long lines, broken machines, and registered voters who can't vote because their names aren't showing up on the registration rolls. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. (Click here to access specific details and instructions on how to participate, either by Twitter, by sending a text message, or by calling an automated telephone hotline).

In short, "[u]sing this system, voters can help one another to find the best time to go to the polls or find their new polling place, and we can also aggregate and map the messages to "see" in real time where the problem are for the election protection folks to do what they do best." According to organisers, much of Twitter's power comes from its simplicity and its flexibility: "As problems pop up, as they do every election, volunteers and activists can organize on the fly to quickly get information out." Twitter can either work as a private chat line or a broadcast service, thus making it well-suited, in organisers' conception, to serve as a mobile legal aide on election day as questions arise. A volunteer with a sensitive inquiry about, say, a particular person's case could "direct message" @DNClegal to ask for guidance.

This initiative is also designed to forge citizen participation in journalism. On election day, Twitter can help monitor the wait times at polling places - information that local news outlets can broadcast to their audiences by then broadcasting. Major news outlets such as CNN, BBC, NPR, and ABC have agreed to use the feeds and maps from the Twitter Vote Report as part of their election day reporting. Further, "[e]lections seem to run more smoothly when the eyes of the press are watching."

Democracy and Governance.