Blogs

Aiming to get around the sort of he-said-she-said disputes over election irregularities that plagued Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004—disputes that may well have decided the fate of the last two presidential elections—two different groups will use the text and video capabilities of cell phones this year to monitor the polls.

Video the Vote, a project of independent filmmaker Jim Ennis and elections activist James Rucker, began six weeks ago with the launch of a popular video by the same name on YouTube (see below). Drawing more than 100,000 page views, the film ended with a pitch to participate in a project that combines citizen journalism with something akin to a flash mob. The 670 people who have signed on as volunteers will receive text messages on election day and will rush to polling places where irregularities have been reported and document them with digital video cameras. They will then download the footage and make it available to the public and the media. Rucker says the project was motivated by a perceived lack of media coverage of election irregularities in years past. "It's all for making sure these stories actually happen," he told me, "instead of kind of happening a few days later."

A similar effort was launched today by Veeker (as in video + peek), a web startup that aims to be the YouTube of cell phone videos. Founded by Silicon Valley heavyweights Roger Raderman, creator of iFilm, and Alex Kelly, the former head of new media for 21st Century Fox, Veeker is promoting itself with the activist set through the website veekthevote.com. Cell phone users can email their videos into a searchable database on the site that will serve as a source for election footage. The site has partnered with Youth Noise, a networking group for socially minded young people with 115,000 members, some of whom have volunteered to film any irregularities at the polls with their phones. The goal, says spokesperson Vijay Chattha, is to "get more of a realistic picture of what's happing out there."

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

It's not everyday you open up your Dallas Morning News and read this:

"I'm a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican. On all those counts, I was disgusted by an e-mail I just received that's being circulated by campaign supporters of Republican George Allen, who's trying to retain his Senate seat in Virginia.

The message goes like this: "First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. ... Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office." Democrat James Webb is a war hero and former Marine, wounded in Vietnam and winner of the Navy Cross. He was writing about class and military issues long before me and has articulated the issue of how the elites have dropped the ball on military service in his classic novel Fields of Fire. By the way, that's a book Tom Wolfe calls "the greatest of the Vietnam novels."...

Mr. Webb also happens to be running against a desperate opponent supported by people who circulated the stupid e-mail, something that reminds me of a 2000 smear campaign aimed at another war hero, John McCain.

I never served in the military. It was my son's unexpected volunteering that connects me to the military family and to my country. And I've been voting Republican for years. My late father – Dr. Francis Schaeffer – was an evangelical theologian, friend to Jerry Falwell and White House guest of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and the first President Bush. I have nice handwritten letters from various members of the Bush family, including Barbara, thanking me for my books on military service. So I have every reason to stay in the Republicans' good graces. (It's nice to be complimented on television by the First Lady.)

But enough is enough. I've had it with Republican smears."

[Follow the jump. It gets better.]

[Read more]

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

According to the BBC, an English-language version of the Al Jazeera channel goes live on Nov. 15th, despite the fact that "a recent poll found 53% of Americans opposed the launch of the channel and two-thirds of Americans thought the US government should not allow it entry to the US market."

In light of that, time to read Mother Jones own Dan Schulman's piece on Lieutenant Josh Rushing, the Marine public-affairs officer who was shown dealing with the international press corps in the early days of the Iraq War in Control Room, a documentary about Al Jazeera.

Rushing has since gone to work for Al Jazeera, suffering death threats because of it.

Dan writes: "When he joined the network almost a year ago, he saw himself as a cultural emissary who could help the rest of the world understand the America he loves. Now, 'more and more I see myself as a journalist,' Rushing says. 'It's taking a long time to let go of that spokesperson side of me who wants to control the message and to embrace the side that's about letting the message be whatever you find. There's a real value to this journalism thing.'"

We think so too.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

The first independent poll in the California house race between Jerry McNerney and Richard Pombo (R-Ca) shows McNerney leading Pombo 48% to 46%. With a margin of error of plus or minus 3%, that makes the race a virtual dead heat. Previous polling by the McNerney campaign and environmental groups produced similar results but Pombo remains blissfully optimistic. As Pombo spokesman Brian Kennedy said of the poll, "I don't believe it…[Pombo] will win."

Read my interview with Jerry McNerney here, where he says of Pombo, "It's time to get rid of him and put a responsible government back in Washington."

—Amaya Rivera

• Print
• Email
• Tweet