PRI's The World: Technology Podcast 217, Special Election Edition

November 04, 2008

What's a technology correspondent to do when he's left off the Election Day broadcast? Why, do a special Election Day podcast, of course. Here's WTP 217, which focuses on how technology has shaped, and been shaped by, the seemingly endless campaign for the US presidency.

We begin with a report that examines how both the McCain and Obama campaigns have tried to harness the power of on-line tools such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The report includes a couple of great clips from Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post.

From there, we try to get a handle on which camp better harnessed technology in pursuit of victory. We speak first with Phil Noble, founder of a website called Politics Online. Phil told me that he's been amazed at what the Obama campaign has managed to do on-line, both from a fundraising point of view, and an organizational point of view. He looks back to 2004, and Howard Dean's failed campaign for the Democratic nomination. Noble quoted veteran 'net campaigner Joe Trippi: "The Dean Campaign was the Wright Brothers. The Obama Campaign is the Apollo moon shot."

Then, we broaden it out by turning to Andrew Rasiej at the non-partisan group blog techPresident. Andrew also has praise for the Obama campaign when it comes to using not just the web, but also cell phone text messages. The interesting question for Andrew is what happens to the online communities Obama has created after the election. He told me:

"Win or lose, it's very clear that politics is going to be completely changed, not so much as battles between two parties, but between generations over the future of the country in relation to how much information is available, when decisions get made, who makes them. This is a new vanguard of citizen activists that this technology has enabled, and every administration going forward is looking at a new 21st century democracy."

Next, we hear from a San Francisco based mobile phone company called Credo. It's a full-service company that's doing some very interesting free projects around social causes in general, and around this election in particular. They're offering a web and text message service that allows you to send friends and family an SMS reminder to go and vote. You can also send a text message to 69866, with your street address and zip code, and you will receive back, in short order, your polling location and a Google map to help you find it. And finally, Credo's implemented a Mobile Action project. Some 12,000 poll watchers worldwide will be monitoring polling locations, and using texts and calls to alert folks to potential problems at polling stations.

I find this use of mobiles and texts fascinating, and familiar. Familiar because I've reported on it before, and fascinating because it's usually in the context, not of developed democracies, but in emerging democracies. Phil Noble cites The Orange Revolution in Ukraine. See also great blog posts on this by Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center at Harvard, and Erik Hersman, blogging at White African.

Happy Voting!

Oh, almost forgot. The Onion has already called the election. The winner? The voting machines.

Thank you, Onion, for some much needed, semi-comic relief.

Comments

[Tommy LH]

Great show, Clark.
Hearing you since the inception ...

Just wanna put forward a fact correction to the American public. The first internet election of the 21st century happened to be in---not in the US and certainly not in 2008---but in South Korea.