Thanks to the many election mishaps we've gone through for the last six years or so, we might now be on camera on Election Day!
The "Video the Vote" project is the baby of filmmakers Ian Inaba, John Ennis and James Rucker. They will be running a website that will feature live Election Day reports that will cover and document voting irregularities, exit interviews and other events on Election Day. According to their website, the filmmakers are acting as "citizen journalists," trying to ensure that the kind of voter disenfranchisement that occurred in 2000 and 2004 doesn't happen any more because the events will be reported and witnessed right as they occur!
Of course, this project is probably just loved by various politicians. However, Video the Vote is following the various laws and regulations about having videographers and reporters staying well out of the way, outside of the regulated 100-foot perimeter that is enforced for everyone who is not a pre-approved poll observer or credentialed member of the media. The documentary is due to come out sometime in 2007, to get things ready for 2008!
(On a completely personal note: since my absentee ballot actually was "lost" in 2004, this is big news. Of course, now I'll have to wear nice clothes when I go to vote on Tuesday, since I could be caught on camera!)
1. Hi Katherine,
I just wanted to stop by and tell you about the success of another video voting project, Veek The Vote 2006.
Veeker (www.veeker.com), a leading mobile-to-Internet video communication service, believes that the mobile phone as a video capture and communication device had its coming out party during this year’s U.S. election. “Veek the Vote 2006,” which received over 750 mobile video messages from Americans using the video camera in a mobile phone to show the world where they stood on Election Day, represents a new milestone for citizen journalism in the United States. “Veek the Vote 2006” was the result of a partnership between Veeker and YouthNoise (www.youthnoise.com), the Internet’s first social network for youth dedicated to social change.
On Election Day, mobile video messages and photos arrived every few minutes from various states across the nation, including Virginia, Missouri, California, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Florida and Ohio.
In local races, one veek showed San Francisco School Board candidate Jane Kim making the rounds with her campaign posters. On a state and national level, there was a veek of a Claire McCaskill supporter participating in a ‘Get out the Vote’ initiative. McCaskill eventually won this particular race by a small margin and contributing to the Democratic Party's eventual control of the Senate. Other video messages were from YouthNoise’s CitiJo (i.e., Citizen Journalist) NOISEmakers who were reporting on the most important issues this election. News of “Veek the Vote 2006” spread through the political blogosphere, further demonstrating the impact of the blogging community in this election.
“College kids and senior citizens alike joined together to use the cameras in their mobile phones to communicate their experiences and opinions on Election Day,” states Veeker Co-Founder Rodger Raderman. “People felt empowered by the ability to express themselves in this way to other Americans. Taken together, all of these videos present a richly textured view of Election Day in America.”
Posted at 2:08AM on Nov 28th 2006 by Kemble K. Pope