Social Networking Changes the Playing Field of USA Elections

All the stories about attempts to disenfranchise American citizens, making sure their votes don't fairly count, has me down. A lot of tricks designed to prevent people from voting used to be limited to Black or poor communities. Now, the-group-that-shall-not-be-named, are bold enough to block people from voting everywhere.

Mashable, one of the people I follow on Twitter (he usually Tweets techy stuff) send out a great link about leveling the presidential election playing field a bit. He, or one of his minions, sent out a great link to The Ultimate Election Day 2008 Toolkit. In addition to the Twitter Vote Report I mention above, it has YouTube and other social networking sites that are tuned into the United States of America Presidential Election on November 4th. Definitely worth a bookmark. I'll try to blog the post so there may be more information above this one.

I've been busy with election stuff since the original post. I've done Senator Barack Obama phone banking (lots of people calling from one location) at the Palo Alto City Hall during the Rally for Change, Swing State GOTV (Get Out the Vote) Phoning at the Silicon Valley Campaign Headquarters and I've done some GOTV phoning at home. The thing about phoning Florida, Montana and California, the temperament stereotype is true. If the person has a friendly, good, upbeat attitude, they are an Obama supporter. If they are mean, nasty, rude and grumpy, they are a John McCain/Sarah Palin supporter. So far, I haven't run across anything to contradict this cliche. Even counting in the people who were in a rush and couldn't talk.

This is by far the most work I've ever done for any candidate at any level of government. Here's some pictures I took. Wish I had other candid shots of the HQ, but I was kinda busy. I feel like the polls are too close to relax and make assumptions how things will end. I plan to get back on the phone calling this afternoon, to try to make more of a difference. I don't want to wake up once the results have been tallied and think, Why didn't I do more?

My favorite links to track what's going on with the election:

• Twitter Election 2008
• The Huffington Post
• Digg
• Clipmarks
• Flickr
• YouTube
  
• Kivans for Obama on Kiva.org and on my.barackobama.com.
  

The thing I like about all these sites is that the "what's interesting" filter is other humans, not some production editor in some mainstream mass media outlet. Sure there are a lot of kooks and people who didn't pay attention in school but you also find out about stuff you wouldn't have otherwise. Like this morning I caught part of Obama's speech in Ohio live on C-Span. The TV guide said something like "C-Span weekend programming". If it wasn't for Twitter, I would have missed it.