Twittering Philly
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 22nd, 2008 8:42 amThe use of Twitter as a discovery vehicle for raw political intelligence takes another step today with Election Journal, a project by Republican election watchdog Mike Roman. The site is using Twitter, Flickr, and Google Maps to cover primary election day in Philadelphia, with Twittering correspondents stationed around the city.
Anyone who’s worked a few election days in Philly knows how colorful things can get. Violence, intimidation, broken machines, and officials denied entry into polling places are par for the course. With more than 1,600 precincts in the city alone, it’s difficult to get a handle on it all. Here’s hoping a little technology-enabled citizen journalism can bring some much needed transparency to election day.
Follow @ElectionJournal on Twitter to get live breaking updates. And here’s a map of the incidents they’ve uncovered so far:
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Now that Super Delegates Matter Even More…
LobbyDelegates.com Lets Ordinary Voices Be Heard
The unconstrained votes of some 800 top Democratic Party officials, known as Super Delegates, now matter even more following the Pennsylvania Primary, which continued to leave both Presidential candidates short of the 2,024 primary-pledged delegates needed to secure the nomination.
Those believing these Party insiders (who include governors, mayors, state and Congressional lawmakers) should be more accountable to rank-and-file Democrats, can now have their voices heard through www.LobbyDelegates.com. This one-stop portal is the first and only one empowering grassroots Democrats to directly communicate with their state’s Super Delegates – via email, fax or postal letters.
LobbyDelegates.com maintains lists of Super Delegates who have endorsed Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or are still uncommitted. Users can, with one click, target all uncommitted Super Delegates and urge them to publicly endorse a certain candidate, or remain uncommitted. Users can similarly lobby Super Delegates to keep an existing commitment, or switch to the other candidate.
Although Sen. Obama leads with 1,490 pledged delegates to 1,336 for Sen. Clinton, neither would attain 2,024 even if one or the other won two-thirds of the remaining primary delegates. While Clinton leads among Super Delegates, 259 to 235, Obama has narrowed this gap steadily over the past six weeks. Over 300 Super Delegates remain uncommitted.
The LobbyDelegates.com website is strictly independent, and is not aligned with any political party, candidate, campaign or advocacy group. LobbyDelegates.com was created as a public service under the auspices of the nonprofit StateDemocracy Foundation, whose similar civic engagement website, www.StateDemocracy.com, is dedicated to delivering democracy to your desktop by connecting citizens and lawmakers.
Thousands have visited LobbyDelegates.com since it was launched on April 3. Since then, the website has been upgraded by adding a blog, the ability to invite friends, and free email delivery.
[…] What could this mean for politics? Patrick Ruffini has talked about using twitter for election coverage extensively. It could also be used by supporters to relay what is going on at a campaign event while it’s happening. Embeded reporters to break news from an event or while traveling on a campaign bus. Lastly, rival campaign trackers could broadcast negative information about a candidate live as it happened. I was an early skeptic of the usefulness of Twitter; but I’ll admit I’m starting to find more and more uses for it every day. […]
[…] That’s what I get for not checking-in with Patrick Ruffini more frequently. On his interesting site he covered electionjournal.org a few weeks ago around the time of the Pennsylvania primary. […]