Techies rejoice online to help low-income Americans get to the polls on Nov 4

By Steve Poland   •   October 8, 2008

The title of this post is a lie — but it’s my hope.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that the majority of the smartest technical minds in the USA are Democrats and supporting Obama. If we were to even just look at Twitter, John McCain has 2,500 followers, while Obama has 88,000 followers.

The low-income population could swing any presidential vote to the Democrats, if only they were to get out and vote. But most poor don’t have a means to get to the voting booth or aren’t educated enough on political issues to vote, or they simply just don’t care (and don’t think their vote will matter anyhow).

Everyone that’s an American should be voting. This is a democracy. I’m surprised that the tech-savvy Democratic supporters haven’t joined together in an effort to get more individuals to the polls on November 4, 2008. People could be offering to carpool individuals. Or setup buses that drive individuals to the voting booths that day. Maybe a non-biased “crib sheet” is provided to these typical non-voters that lists the candidates and their views on different issues; maybe the crib sheet facts are approved by both candidates. Maybe free bagels or other inexpensive food is provided to voters as an incentive to vote — whether they vote Republican or Democrat.

Where is the open-source led movement for setting up this national network of volunteers online that ensures flyers are posted around cities (informing the poor of this day), buses setup with pickup points, bagels donated (or purchased) from local bakeries, temporary childcare facilities possibly setup while voters vote, etc.

I’m shocked a collective of tech minds hasn’t stepped up to make this happen. I’d think Obama would be all about financially supporting this effort, even if anonymously.

Of course, we don’t want these ignorant voters necessarily coming out.




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Comments

2 Responses to “Techies rejoice online to help low-income Americans get to the polls on Nov 4”

  1. MyAvatars 0.2 Michael St. Hilaire on October 9th, 2008 10:36 am (perm link)

    Obama wants to help the poor and middle class, but he has to get elected first. If he drives them to the polls and the marjoity don’t vote for him, it would not be a good move for him overall.

    Unfortunately the uneducated tend to obviously be hard to predict. They vote with their gut, they vote with their neighbor, anything but really evaluating what issues the president stands for.

    I would certainly hope those who are low income would want to vote for Obama since he’s got a proven track record (that they even made fun of) in helping the poor and underprivelaged.

    It wouldn’t take much effort to do a poll in one of the swing states and sponsor free transportation to those who promise to vote obama though.

    Seems like some of the existing sites like RideSearch, erideshare, etc would sponsor something like this. It would garner lots of attention and hopefully a lot of site traffic as well.

  2. MyAvatars 0.2 Jonathan Volk on October 9th, 2008 1:07 pm (perm link)

    Good post. Voting is a huge thing… Though… I will be voting McCain! Wooo. :)

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