Stay tuned! The Tech Daily Dose will be back soon with more tasty morsels from the staff of National Journal's Technology Daily. Until then, keep reading our daily A.M. and P.M. issues.
The following guest entry was written by Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press and the Savetheinternet.com Coalition.
In the coming weeks, major communications companies and their high-spending lobbyists will do everything they can to dismiss last week's political result and reassert their control over the business of policymaking. But what happened on Tuesday has much deeper ramifications for phone and cable efforts to set the agenda.
On the issue of network neutrality, companies like AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and Comcast outspent public-interest advocates on a scale of 500 to one -- pushing Congress to remove the longstanding nondiscrimination rules that enabled the Internet to become the greatest vehicle for free speech and economic innovation. To do away with these freedoms, the phone and cable lobby will continue to paint issues like Net Neutrality as "unnecessary government regulations" and dismiss the groundswell of public support for this issue as the handiwork of a few "liberal groups."
The public tolerance for this type of "astroturfing" was tested in 2006. More than 75 percent of respondents to a September CBS/New York Time poll thought that most members of Congress "are more interested in serving special interest groups" than "serving the people they represent." As much as anything, last week's vote sent a message to Congress to stop currying favor with moneyed interests and return to governing in the public interest.
Near the top of this new agenda will be restoring net neutrality. Many in Congress came to this realization after receiving more than a million letters from concerned citizens urging them to maintain a free and open Internet. Whereas before, the phone companies had been confident that Congress would simply sign-off on industry-written legislation, today no member of Congress can vote with the telecom cartel without feeling the full heat of public scrutiny.
Yahoo News outpaced its competitors with 6.3 million unique visitors on Election Day, Nielsen/NetRatings said Friday. CNN came in second with 5.9 million and MSNBC with 5.0 million. AOL News and Internet Broadcasting Web sites rounded out the top five online news destinations with 3.7 million and 2.2 million visitors, respectively.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center's Marc Rotenberg is keeping his eyes peeled during the lame duck session for the resurgence of bills aimed at codifying the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program. He told me that his group and civil liberties watchdogs like the American Civil Liberties Union, will fight such a sneak-attack.
Wednesday's Technology Daily included a story on civil liberties advocates' hopes that Election Day's Democratic victory may have killed surveillance bills proposed in the 109th Congress. Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Monday.
Rotenberg said the new Democratic-led House and Senate will provide "several welcome changes" with respect to civil liberties and privacy issues. Topics he hopes will top next year's "to-do list" include:
-- The need for more government accountability and transparency.
-- Privacy protection legislation with strong breach notification language.
-- More oversight of the Justice and Homeland Security departments.
The following guest entry was written by Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. A portion of his remarks were included in a story in today's Technology Daily.
Less than a decade ago there seemed to be a strong and broad consensus that preserving the open, dynamic, and innovative Internet world was a central priority.
The Supreme Court tossed out the Communications Decency Act on a 9-0 vote and Netizens of all stripes cheered. Congress banned Internet-only taxes, the FCC declined to extend the access charge regime to the Internet, and attempts to turn the world's most important technology into a walled-in, over-policed corner of the world failed. Many understood that some minimal regulation would be necessary, but a light touch that still preserved basic openness and freedom was the hope.
We have seen the united front behind that approach dissolve as narrow parochial interests seek intrusive regulatory solutions. Whether the rationale was terrorism, pornography, piracy, or gambling, ever-increasing regulation of transactions and applications is corroding the promise of the Web. We are "changing the diet of the goose that lays the golden eggs."
Law enforcement is over-assertive. Big Content overreaches with its attempts to expand copyright and patent law. Anyone and everyone with a gripe about what their kids do on the Net wants the Nanny State to guarantee a pristine Internet. Too many Members of Congress are yielding to the temptation to make lots of people liable when undesirable things happen. They seem unaware of the drag that litigation and an overly regulatory approach can impose on legitimate players and the future of innovation.
I urge my industry colleagues to unite with Internet users and reassert the earlier consensus in the 110th Congress.
Virginia Democrat Senate candidate James Webb claimed victory on Wednesday and effectively began picking out curtains and couches for his new Capitol Hill office. The AP declared Webb the winner that night. But there's a catch. Incumbent George Allen, a member of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, has not conceded defeat. The eyes of the nation are on the Old Dominion State today.
Meanwhile, our managing editor Danny Glover wrote about Democratic netroots winners, Rightroots losers and reactions from bloggers on his Beltway Blogroll.
Update: In his concession speech Thursday afternoon, Allen brought up the Internet taxation issue. He introduced S. 849 in the 109th Congress, which would make permanent a ban on state and local taxes on Web access.
The following guest entry was written by Mike McCurry and Chris Wolf, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition.
Despite some of the speculation to the contrary, we think the change in makeup of Congress, should change nothing in the debate over Internet regulation. While many have tried to turn this into a partisan debate, it is not. Important voices across the political spectrum have concluded that regulation of the Internet is unnecessary and would result in a whole host of unintended consequences. Editorial pages on the right and left, labor unions like the Communications Workers of America, high-tech manufacturers, as well as academics, technology leaders and former government officials on both sides of the political aisle – like William Kennard and David Farber - have all urged Congress to avoid the heavy handed regulation of net neutrality.
We are optimistic that the new Congress will continue in the tradition started by Democrats and Republicans in the 1990’s who worked together to ensure regulatory restraint over the Internet. That bipartisan consensus laid the foundation for the unprecedented creation of jobs, opportunity and wealth since the early 1990s. We think that the new Congress will continue this legacy.
Intellectual property rights crusader and Utah Republican Orrin Hatch retained his Senate seat on Election Day, defeating Democrat and Internet entrepreneur Pete Ashdown. Hatch won 62 percent of the vote and Ashdown received 31 percent.
In his concession speech, the president of Internet service provider XMission, thanked his supporters, saying he was bruised, but not beaten and down, but not defeated. Read his prepared remarks here.
The following guest entry was written by Mark SooHoo of Campaign Solutions
As the dust settles on a tumultuous election, the overarching story from the online perspective is the rise of blogs and consumer-generated media to play a significant role in the 2006 elections. Whether for fundraising or organization as was the case with Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut Democratic Primary or Senator George Allen’s unfortunate “macaca” incident spread virally through YouTube, clearly the online world had an important impact on this election.
However, the untold story of this election will be the lost opportunity of online advertising to target voters. With the rise of TiVo and studies showing more time being shifted online both at work and at home, political campaigns continued to pour millions into television and other traditional advertising, and a comparatively small percentage spent for online advertising. As campaigns assess what went wrong (or what went right in some cases), more will ultimately come to the conclusion that they need to shift advertising dollars and prioritize online spending to account for shifts in time spent online.
Technology Daily's Michael Martinez reports that it’s not likely any political candidates will be less graceful in defeat this week than country music diva Faith Hill at a recent awards show -- but some of them are closing in on her supremacy on the popular file video-sharing site YouTube.
Clips of Hill melting down after her loss at the Country Music Awards earlier this week still top the list of the most watched videos on the site. But a video accusing the campaign of Sen. George Allen, R-Va., of placing automated telephone calls to suppress Democratic votes is steadily climbing up the YouTube charts.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 64,000 times. The FBI has launched an investigation into the source of the calls. Only a few spots behind the anti-Allen clip is a video of Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, struggling to operate an optical-scan voting machine. It will most likely take a Herculean effort to overtake Hill for the dubious YouTube throne-- videos inspired by her gaffe currently occupy six of the seven top spots.
Among the thousands of uncounted absentee ballots that could impact the Virginia senate race and even the balance of power in the senate is one cast by a former H-1B visa recipient who became a citizen in July 2001.
Emmett Delaney, a former citizen of Ireland raised in South Africa, arrived in 1993 on a highly skilled visa to work for Systems Programming Limited in San Francisco. He voted absentee in the Virginia election because he travels giving presentations on emerging technologies for Cisco as a systems engineer in its Herndon, Va., office.
Delaney said voting may be more meaningful to him because he earned the right to vote and does not take it for granted. He said he hopes the close senate race in Virginia is a reminder that every vote counts and to vote absentee if necessary.
He also hopes Democratic challenger Jim Webb wins the senate seat. Delaney said he voted for Webb because of his strong military record with the idea that someone with that experience would have better experience to fix the mess in Iraq.
A story in today's Technology Daily P.M. edition examines what the new Democrat-led House could mean for the civil liberties crowd, specifically with regard to the National Security Agency's electronic wiretapping program. Several experts weighed in but a few thoughts did not make the cut due to space constraints.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told me the most obvious change will be the use of oversight by Congress, which "has been frozen in amber for years." On Wednesday morning, "you could already hear the hum of paper shredding and cleaning of hard drives throughout Washington," he said.
Serious questions about how the 110th Congress will handle ethics worry the legal scholar. Will members be banned from accepting travel and vacations? Will they be barred from legislating in areas where they have financial interests? Will there be a rule against the hiring of spouses and children by lobbyists? Only the future will tell, he said.
The following guest entry was written by Larry Farnsworth, a vice president at Crosby-Volmer International Communications and former staffer for House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
I believe there will be a chance for the [110th] Congress to get things done in a bipartisan fashion for the high-tech industry. There’s always been a bipartisan will to pass sound pieces of public policy, from trade agreements, to making permanent the extension of the R&D tax credits and H-1B visa reform.
But the high-tech industry needs Congress to pass additional legislation such as the making the President’s tax cuts permanent in order to keep America competitive. The tax relief passed in 2003 has primed the pump for the economy to roar full steam ahead, but the R&D extenders have been flat lined. By extending the R&D tax credits, businesses will be able to fund critical projects they otherwise would have cancelled and simply chalked up as the cost of doing business.
With the results of the Virginia senate race too close to call, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., spoke at a victory party for Democratic challenger Jim Webb, expressing his frustration with a third party candidate.
Indendent Green Party candidate Glenda Parker captured 26,048 votes, or 1.1 percent, in a race that hangs slightly in favor of Webb by less than 8,000 votes.
Moran, didn't mention Parker by name, but said she could end up being the Ralph Nadar of this election. "That's the spoiler," Moran said of the independent candidate who he viewed as taking votes that would have more likely gone to the Democrats without the third party choice.
At 1:30 a.m., the bloggers were still going strong. A few had called it quits but some stuck around until the bitter end... when the camera crews started disassembling the lights, TV monitors and unplugging everyone.
(Photo Credit: CNN)
The following guest entry was written by Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project.
Tuesday had the potential to be a very shaky day for American democracy. Electronic voting had been subjected to a lot of well deserved criticism. E-voting was simply not ready for prime time. The votes are unverifiable and in, most cases, the proprietary software that runs the systems is neither subjected to independent review or open to examination. Both fraud and mistake were possible and were hard to detect.
But e-voting should not be our only concern. Millions of American were expected to be disenfranchised by onerous ID requirements -- both real and phony. They were improperly purged from the voting rolls. Countless numbers of legitimate voters were forced to cast “provisional ballots” that will never be counted.
To make things worse, many more were shut out by election equipment that is not accessible to persons with disabilities. It is time to reexamine and reform American election systems to make good on the promise of democracy.
Electronic voting machine failures kept some polls from opening, created long lines and left many voters puzzled about whether their votes were counted in Tuesday's election, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. The watchdog group joined a nationwide team of technology lawyers and other experts staffing call centers and legal command posts throughout the day. By 8 p.m. ET, over 17,000 incidents, including machine-related problems, had been reported to the Election Protection Coalition's 866-OUR-VOTE hotline.
"If election officials insist on depending on this unreliable technology, they should be prepared to react appropriately when things go wrong," EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said. "Voters should not have to bear the brunt of this poor planning. We are very disappointed that the court did not recognize that."
Read more about EFF's e-voting campaign here.
Around the time CNN projected the Democrats would win the House, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., told a crowd of Democrats gathered for a victory party for senate candidate Jim Webb in Tysons Corner, Va., they would be proud to be Democrats with the new leadership of the House. "You will be proud of the agenda we will pursue." Moran added that Webb "deserves to be in the senate." Hundreds of people packed the Sheraton ballroom, and overflow areas while a tow truck worked outside to remove cars that parked creatively when the garage filled
.
Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro, meanwhile, said at a party he co-hosted at Morton's Steakhouse in Tysons that his group would work with a Democratic House much the same way they worked with Republicans. "This is the industry where the growth is. Democrats and Republicans respect that," Shapiro said.
CNN projects that Democrats will win control of the House. Bloggers share their predictions at the network's blog party.
(Photo Credit: Althouse)
The following guest entry was written by Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics.
I was one of those kids who thought Election Night was about as cool as Christmas. Technology first became part of my ritual in 1988, when I was 12. That night in November, I decided to count up electoral votes as Peter Jennings declared states going for George H.W. Bush or Michael Dukakis.
So, using a World Almanac (printed on paper) and my IBM PC XT, I typed out every state’s name and printed the list on my dot-matrix printer. To figure out the Electoral College permutations, there was no online tracker in red and blue. If Peter wasn’t talking about a race that interested me, I couldn’t click around.
Another toy I didn’t have was OpenSecrets.org, the money-in-politics Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, where I now work. Eighteen years after that election and 23 since the Center’s founding, technology has allowed “following the money” to become a mainstay of political reporting. Unless you’re still running on an IBM XT.
NBC News projects that Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will hold onto his seat, serving his sixth term in the U.S. Senate. On the tech front, Hatch has been a major contributor to intellectual property protections. His bill, S. 167, which aims to criminalize the use of camcorders in movie theaters, as well as unauthorized Internet distribution of pre-released commercial works, was signed into law in April 2005. Hatch also has introduced legislation aimed at improving national sex-offender registries and combating Internet child pornography.
The following guest entry was written by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org
Now and then, the corruption in Congress gets to be too much, and American voters get rid of a lot of it. It builds back up, over the years, creating another need to clean house.
I think we're seeing that tonight, which is a big deal for me. My gig at Craigslist is full time customer service, a lot of which is about fighting small scale crime, petty harassment, scams, stuff like bait and switch. Like everyone else, I'm frustrated and feel kinda helpless in the face of massive corruption.
What's different about this election is the role of the 'net. People are connecting online to work together to defeat bad guys. My experience tells me that this is sustainable, in a way that'll break the cycles of corruption and house cleaning.
The Romans, during the last decades of the Republic faced tremendous corruption, couldn't fix it ... but I think we can.
Here's a quick check of the governors' races that Technology Daily has been tracking. According to major television network projections:
-- Pennsylvania Democrat Ed Rendell will defeat challenger Lynn Swann.
-- Democrat Jennifer Granholm is beating Richard DeVos in Michigan.
-- Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, is expected to beat Judy Topinka.
-- Texas Republican Rick Perry will likely trounce his challenger Chris Bell.
Our Brittany Ballenstedt is reporting that winners have now been projected in nearly half of the Senate races, with incumbent Joseph Lieberman defeating Democrat and former cable executive Ned Lamont. Lieberman lost to Lamont in the Democratic primary in August, but vowed to defend his seat as an independent candidate in the general election. Lieberman will serve his fourth term.
On tech issues, Lieberman's sponsored legislation has encompassed the creation of emergency response and anti-terrorism technologies as well as the establishment of electronic health records.
From Technology Daily's Brittany Ballenstedt: NBC's projected results indicate that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, will serve a third term after defeating Democrat Jean Hay Bright. In the 109th Congress, Snowe was a contributor to massive telecommunications legislation sponsored by Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Snowe attached a strong network neutrality amendment to the bill that failed in the Commerce Committee in July. Net neutrality is slated to be a major issue in the next Congress as partisan debate has emerged over the issue in recent months. Democrats generally favor network neutrality, but most Republicans oppose the concept.
The following guest entry was written by Chuck DeFeo, general manager of Townhall.com.
I have seen several articles this midterm election about politics and technology. And it amazes me how much people are still missing the point.
The Washington Post just ran an article outlining how in the future candidates will join online games like "World of Warcraft" and send their virtual avitars into battle with warlocks. Because that's where the voters are, of course, so candidates should follow. This is as nonsensical as it sounds.
Too often candidates become enamored with what technology can do when they should be thinking about what it should do. A campaigns goal is still to get 51 percent of the vote in this world, not in the online world. Technology should be employed to move voters from the online world into the offline world where elections still happen.
Smart candidates of the future will keep that fundamental goal in mind as they seek to use technology to expand their base of supporters and increase participation in the political process while they're at it. And who knows, maybe we'll see people investing their time fighting for causes they believe in rather than battling orcs.
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has been projected by CNN to defeat GOP challenger Tom Kean Jr. The lawmaker has been relatively quiet on high-tech issues but weighed in this summer on the ongoing probe of corporate executives whose stock options allegedly were backdated to increase their financial value. He said the backdating scandal was not a victimless crime because it harmed investors who may not have known about such insider deals.
In October, Menendez said results of a security exercise conducted by the Transportation Security Administration were "chilling." The findings indicated undercover American agents successfully smuggled firearms, fake explosives and other illegal items onto airplanes at Newark Liberty Airport 20 out of 22 times.
Meanwhile, CNN is also forecasting that that Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland will win the Ohio gubernatorial race over Republican Ken Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state. Strickland would replace outgoing GOP Gov. Bob Taft. Lefty bloggers at the CNN party rejoice.
Technology Daily's Brittany Ballenstedt has been following key campaigns tonight and reports that one of the major races slated to determine whether Democrats regain control of the Senate might have been decided. NBC News is projecting that Democrat Bob Casey beat out Republican incumbent Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania. Democratic turnout was especially prominent in the Philadelphia suburbs. Republicans in Pennsylvania have already filed a complaint saying hundreds of Santorum votes were miscounted or lost.
On the tech front, Santorum sponsored a bill in the 109th Congress that would boost penalties for registered sex offenders and child pornographers, increase penalties for child sex-trafficking and sexual abuse, and create Web-specific children's safety campaigns. That legislation, S.3432, was part of a larger legislative package Bush signed earlier this year.
Lost Remote's Stephen Warley found something interesting to do while we await some solid poll results. He compared Web traffic of Senate candidate sites in hotly contested races on Alexaholic. In Virginia, traffic on Democrat Jim Webb’s site rose sharply in the final days of the race (exceeding traffic for Republican George Allen’s site). In Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill’s Web traffic outpaced her challenger Jim Talent for most of November but now they are tied, Warley found. Read more here.
On a personal note, the Wi-Fi at the CNN blogger party is going berserk and we keep getting booted offline. Not a good way to make friends with bloggers. The IT folks promise us they're getting to the bottom of the problem.
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos (who didn't accept CNN's invitation to blog amongst us) proclaimed earlier that "today is the end of the electronic voting machine."
Republicans are complaining about voting irregularities as loudly as we are today. A Republican governor, two Republican congressmen turned away from the polls. Votes supposedly switching in electronic voting machines in New Jersey. Complaints coming from New Mexico and elsewhere. Here's the bottom line -- no one trusts those machines anymore.
Read more of his post here.
The CNN-sponsored blogger slumber party has begun. Officials told me that all the invited guests showed up and are hard at work blogging. As you can see, there's also food and drink, to keep us happy.
(Photo Credit: Althouse)
The following guest entry was written by Doug Bailey, founder of Unity08, former advisor to President Gerald Ford and founder of National Journal's Hotline.
Like '94 this election has been nationalized. Then it was the Contract for America; this time Iraq. One difference: Gingrich could claim a mandate (even if the Contract was mostly process stuff). What is the Democrats' mandate?
The middle, not “the base,” decided this election. They spoke out loudly – against the President and his Iraq policy, but not for anybody. They would have voted “none of the above” if given the chance. Blame-game and polarized politics means paralyzed government. Little but the leaders will change.
Saving the two-party system ironically may require a third party – the election of a Unity Ticket (one R, one D) to the White House in 2008. It will jolt the two parties to pay attention to the middle, which is a good way to win, a better way to govern, and the only way to lead. Looking for politics with purpose? Come to www.Unity08.com.
The following guest entry was written by Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.
From Public Knowledge’s perspective, there is no clear answer for what constitutes a “good” outcome for this election. Take our two biggest issues: digital copyright and net neutrality.
Regarding copyright, our message that government should not interfere with technological innovation resonates more with Republicans – one reason for that is the historically close relationship between the entertainment industry and Democrats. There are exceptions, most notably Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who understand that the relentless march to stronger copyright is anti-consumer. Particularly in the Senate, where Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., is the most articulate voice against technology mandates, our best friends are largely Republicans.
But everything flips when PK advocates for enforceable net neutrality requirements for broadband providers. Here, our support is overwhelmingly Democratic with a sprinkling of Republicans (for example, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M.). Republicans argue that net neutrality requirements are unnecessary “regulation of the Internet.” Democrats say (and PK agrees) that the public and small companies will be harmed without a non-discrimination requirement.
Regardless of today’s outcome, PK still has to deal with the 109th Congress. The “lame duck” session starts next week, and we will have our eyes and ears open for attempts to pass tech mandates or a telecom bill without net neutrality. We’ll start worrying about the 110th in December.
The following guest entry was written by Doug Chapin, director of electiononline.org.
Voting across the American mainland on Tuesday occurred largely as I would have expected. There were reports of scattered problems in Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere -- plus bad weather, which closed at least one polling place in Washington State -- but by and large the day started off without major incident.
The first YouTube moment of the day occurred in Ohio, where Rep Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, was filmed struggling to get her optical scan ballot to feed into the machine. There were also reports of pollworker no-shows and machine start-up problems in several states… an inevitable consequence of the massive changes we've seen in elections at the local level.
The next big event will be poll closing time, when votes are tabulated -- we'll be watching to see whether or not this morning's problems are present at the important steps of translating votes into vote totals. Stay tuned...
I spent the day visiting polling sites in Reston, Falls Church and Sterling in northern Virginia to talk to voters about the senate race between Sen. George Allen and Democratic challenger Jim Webb. I never mentioned the Iraq war in any of my questions, but every single voter I spoke with did.
Voters supporting both Allen and Webb are angry about how the war has been handled and how many people have been killed. Who they support depended on who they thought could do a better job safely getting the U.S. out of Iraq.
Most voters I interviewed favored Webb, which may make sense as I was in northern Virginia. But when I tried to dig deeper into why most offered little information about Webb himself and expressed anger about President Bush. I was surprised most at the level of anger I encountered.
"Robocalls," those automated telephone messages of, by and for politicians, are the subject of significant controversy this Election Day.
Led by Talking Points Memo, Democratic bloggers have been decrying what they see as fraudulent calls, and now the mainstream media suddenly have latched onto the story. As noted at The Hotline's Blogometer, ABC News, The New York Times and The Washington Post were among the publications to pick up the story.
As was the case with the "Google bomb" story in the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago, Tech Daily was ahead of the curve. We introduced our readers to political robocalls in August as part of our special series on the intersection between politics and technology. We've had more coverage since then as the controversy mounted.
The latest coverage has focused on the calls by Republicans, but our original story by Andrew Noyes, who has been blogging up a storm here today, shows that the GOP does not have a monopoly on robocalls. Here is that story:
A telephone call from sweet, Southern-twanged "Mary Ann" might have helped crush the bid by Republican Ralph Reed to become Georgia's lieutenant governor. The caller, who slammed Reed's past lobbying efforts, was affiliated with Campaign Money Watch, a well-known Washington-based nonprofit dedicated to improving campaign finance laws.
Mass-dialed, computerized calls like Mary Ann's have become common in American politics, and most use popular political figures or celebrities. Former President Clinton recorded one for Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who lost his primary last week. Actors Billy Crystal and Sally Field recently lent their voices to a pre-school-focused ballot initiative in California.
The technique usually utilizes extensive call lists to reach would-be voters and is classified as political speech, dodging FTC-enforced "do not call" rules against telemarketing. Democratic political-messaging expert Marty Stone said his clients' participation and listening rates have actually increased since the national do-not-call registry was launched in 2003.
"Phone calls, either live or automated, should be used to have a conversation with voters," Stone said. "There are only a handful of mediums where you're having a conversation -- e-mail, phones and door-knocking." Others, like TV and radio advertising, are passive "push mediums," he said.
The following post was written by staff writer Michael Martinez, who spent the day observing polling places in Maryland.
Business was surprisingly smooth at the three polling places I visited in Maryland today. Voter turnout at the precincts at the Leisure World retirement village in Silver Spring and University Park Elementary School in Hyattsville was particularly impressive. Elections officials in Hyattsville told me that lines there had been long, but manageable since polls opened this morning. Only at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park did lines seem thin.
On a non-tech related note, I picked up one of the controversial "voter guides" being passed out in Prince George's County that inaccurately lumped Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele with Democratic candidates. The Washington Post already has the scoop. Allegedly, some of the folks passing out the guides were recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia and bussed down to Maryland. I didn't meet any of these volunteers myself, but the precinct at University Park Elementary was buzzing with the news.
The following guest entry was written by Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. He previously worked for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and held other positions on Capitol Hill.
Election Day. There's nothing like it. Other than my wedding and the birth of our kids, my most memorable -- joyful and painful -- days have been these special Tuesdays when Americans go the polls to throw the bums out or keep the other bums from getting in. When you're managing a campaign or running a political committee, even though you're not the candidate, you feel like your life too is in the hands of the voters.
You always remember your first (campaign) the most -- and mine was Connie Mack's 1988 run to replace Lawton Chiles. Mack was called the loser on national TV by about 10:30 - but the pundits were wrong. A 35,000 vote gap at midnight narrowed to about 5000 early in the morning -- and then absentees kicked in to give Connie the win. ... A little recount exercise over eight days, and presto the race was over. Twelve years later, that recount record was broken by Bush/Gore.
In today's Blackberry, blog, YouTube, survey-centric world, the flow of information and analysis -- fact and fiction -- is radically different than the environment we faced in 1988, or in Mack's 1994 re-elect, or even in my two committee cycles (1998 and 2002). As the velocity of information increases, the ability of campaigns to control their own destiny diminishes.
If you're an outsider, that's probably for the good. If you're an insider -- whether a Republican or Democrat -- it's just one more big hurdle you face to drive message and try to find a way to make election day a success.
This afternoon's Technology Daily P.M. Edition has some interesting election coverage. Michael Martinez reports on e-voting glitches; Heather Greenfield reports on the tight Virginia Senate race between George Allen and challenger James Webb; and David Hatch writes about Montana Republican Conrad Burns' struggle to keep his Senate seat.
CNN's Situation Room blog will serve as home base for tonight's "E-lection Nite Blog Party." You can read more about the event and the bloggers participating here. The network plans on checking in with the battery of bloggers throughout the evening and much of the event will be streamed on CNN's premium Pipeline service. We'll be there too, blogging feverishly and finding fodder for Technology Daily coverage tomorrow.
The following guest entry was written by James DeLong, a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
Perhaps I grow more idealistic as I age, but my dominant impression of this election is the irresponsibility of both parties, which offer no serious policies or ideas of any sort. I hypothesize that this unpleasant state of affairs arises from the intersection of campaign finance "reform" with technology.
Reform forces candidates to collect small amounts of money or time from a large base, which is best motivated by slander, simplification, and direct economic payments in the form of pork or benefits. It also removes the party structure as a quality control over candidates. The growth of blogs and email and the multiplication of media channels, each forced to fill time and space with empty words, creates immense competing echo chambers.
So, repeal McCain-Feingold, and let the sober middle class reassert itself. What we are seeing is raw, unmediated democracy, and it isn't pretty. It is becoming ochlocracy.
The negative ads and mudslinging in the Virginia senate race in the final weeks of the campaign certainly didn't dim turnout in the tech corridor in Loudoun County. Here's what voters had to say about it:
"There was a lot of dirty politics by both candidates," said Thomas Duke of Sterling. Despite his support for Bush in 2004, he voted for Webb because of Webb's status as a veteran and concern over the deficit.
Paul Hurwit supported Webb despite concern over comments Webb made 30 years ago regarding women in the military. "He seems to have evolved," said Hurwit, who has worked as a military consultant and is now upset about the handling of the war in Iraq.
Dave Dillard said he supported Allen despite his use of a racial slur in describing a Webb volunteer as well as later charges Allen used other racially charged language.
"I don't think he's a racist. He made amistake and was probably misinformed. It's just like I don't think John Kerry thinks the military is stupid. In this day and age I have a difficult time believing any of our politicians are racist," Dillard said.
Cross-posted at Beltway Blogroll
That's a good question on this Election Day -- and in an election year when people online have come to expect transparency in government, not to mention lots of campaign-related video.
The Center for Citizen Media has the state-by-state answer in a guest post by Lauren Gelman, deputy director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University.
Conservative RedState blogger Martin A. Knight had some strong words today (in bold red typeface). "Call me unrealistic, but I'm operating under the assumption that we're not losing a single seat unless we let ourselves lose," he said. The blog also started an open thread on voter experiences.
On Huffington Post, Blake Fleetwood warned that "in every election since 1988 there have been errors inflating Democratic numbers, but the pollmeisters have vowed to compensate for this unexplained factor this year." Be wary of phony polls, he cautioned, "which will be no more than quick telephone surveys of a small sample." As the British say, exit polls are "all in fun anyway."
Over at Right Wing News, John Hawkins reported on a teleconference with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman. There have been "some dirty tricks" aimed at GOP candidates like an egging of Minnesota representative Gil Gutknecht's headquarters and poll workers being charged with faking votes from dead people in Tennessee. He also warned against paying attention to exit polls.
Matt Stoller at MyDD offered some advice to Democratic candidates in tight races where there are electoral problems. "You need to be prepared for your opponent to steal votes using a mix of local operatives and national legal expertise," he said. Read his tips here.
Meanwhile, BlogPulse reports that blogging stats are through the roof.
Talking Points Memo is reporting that:
-- None of the electronic voting machines in Arlington Heights, Illinois were working this morning. That's House Republican Mark Kirk's district.
-- In Sullivan County, Tennessee, a voter reports that all three machines at a polling place were out of order.
-- A citizen in Tampa, Florida was told by election officials that her name was not on the list because the voter database had been "cleaned."
-- Long lines in Denver due to computer problems.
Users on the right-leaning Powerline blog's forum reported problems in various states, including Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. The reports from Pennsylvania were mixed, with significant troubles in inner-city Philadelphia. Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign reports that turnout is high across the state but quite low in Philadelphia.
The AP reports that technical glitches delayed voting in dozens of Indiana and Ohio precincts, and Illinois officials were deluged with calls from voters saying election workers did not know how to operate new electronic equipment.
The following guest entry was written by Janice Obuchowski, former head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Bert Halprin, former chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. Obuchowski is president of consulting firm Freedom Technologies Inc. and Halprin is a partner at law firm Halprin Temple.
One of the most interesting changes which technology – and the Internet in particular – has brought to this election season is the multitude of blogs. Within the past two cycles, these have replaced traditional media as the prime source of news. While years ago, people marveled at watching the news in "real" time on 24/7 cable news channels, people today demand knowing things in "preview" time. There are already several "pre mortems" of congressional races available in blogdom based on analyses of absentee/advance precinct voting patterns
If, as some suspect, traditional polling organizations come out tainted from this election, we expect that bloggers will be setting up polling alternatives by 2008. The phenomenon of YouTube and other narrowcast video in general will grow, and present a growing challenge to over the air paid political advertising. In addition, a combination of the near universal availability of analytic tools and a way to communicate with the world may lead soon to a situation in which there are almost as many election analysts as actual voters.
Want to know which campaigns are paying bloggers and how much they get? Curious about which bloggers put their money where their virtual mouths are by contributing to the campaigns they promote?
Beltway Blogroll has the answers:
-- "How Much Is That Blogger In Your Windows?"
-- "A Follow-Up On Campaign Bloggers"
-- "Blog Donors"
The following guest entry was written by Michael Petricone, senior vice president for government affairs at the Consumer Electronics Association.
This is the election where our industry has taken center stage. Previously, campaigns have done online voter outreach. But suddenly, everyone – citizens, journalists, politicians – has jumped into the digital fray.
Online bloggers drive key races. Videos and commentary fly from e-mail to e-mail. Home-made political ads pop up on YouTube – and many are funny and brilliant.
Technology has democratized political speech. Sharing your opinions with millions once required affiliation with major newspaper or TV station. But now, all you need is passion, creativity, and an Internet connection. Welcome to our new digital world.
Mixed Reviews for the Internet on Its First Presidential Election
New York Times 11/7/1996
Internet use in general was not up much more than usual on election night. However, the most well-known sites for election coverage were completely swamped, and users experienced delays getting information. MSNBC was so busy it was impossible to get through. PoliticsNow was knocked offline for a little bit. CNN's site had huge delays, and the NYT's site was infested with hackers.
(Thanks to Benton's Communications-related Headlines for the tip)
The fate of all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats as well as 36 races for governor and a slew of ballot measures around the country will be decided today... or if there are ballot-reading glitches, it might be more like tomorrow, the next day or next week. In any case, at some point in the very near future, American voters wil elect some new faces and perhaps new leadership on Capitol Hill. Democrats need 15 House seats or six Senate seats to form a majority, AP reports.
The most vulnerable GOP-held House seats include those in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Ohio and Iowa, according to the AP. Republican Reps. John Hostettler, Chris Chocola and Mike Sodrel of Indiana; Charles Taylor of North Carolina; Curt Weldon, Don Sherwood and Melissa Hart in the Keystone State; and Charles Bass of New Hampshire have been in especially challenging re-election races.
In the Senate, GOP incumbents like Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and Ohio’s Mike DeWine were fighting furiously for their seats; Sens. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island and Montana's Conrad Burns somewhat less so, AP said. Stay tuned...
The following guest entry was written by Julie Barko Germany, deputy director for the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
Candidates rise and fall in public opinion, but this election season had one constant: YouTube is the media darling 2006. We e-mail YouTube videos to each other work. We read about the latest and funniest on our RSS feeds. We turn on the news and watch yet another segment on the YouTubization of politics.
Video is all the rage. But video evolved in a new way this season, and it didn’t happen on YouTube. It happened on your mobile phone. The DeVos for Governor campaign in Michigan launched a campaign ad designed for mobile phones from its very own .mobi Web address.
If you view www.devos.mobi on your Web browser at work, it is underwhelming. View the site on your mobile phone while you stand in line for coffee or wait for the train to work, and you access easy-to-read (on a two-inch screen) content, as well as a short, just-for-mobile campaign ad.
Sure, you can download your favorite political ad on your iPod from your Mac or PC and carry it around in your pocket just waiting for 30 seconds of boredom. Or you can watch real media in real time on your mobile phone. It’s immediate, and – most importantly – it’s interactive.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee gave the National Republican Congressional Committee a wrist-slapping on Monday, asking the group to stop sending controversial prerecorded telephone messages to voters in states experiencing tight House races. The cease-and-desist letter, obtained by liberal blogger Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo, said the computerized calls show "a pattern of willful noncompliance with FCC regulations." You can read the letter from the DCCC's Perkins Coie attorney here.
N.Z. Bear at The Truth Laid Bear, a noted creator of cool blogging tools, has unveiled a page that will keep track of Tuesday's national races. Last year, Bear established a Blog for Relief campaign and a pretty fantastic donation-logging program on the heels of Hurricane Katrina. This is definitely worth bookmarking as the results come in...
The following guest entry was written by Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation.
As Election Day neared, and the campaign attack ads reached a crescendo, we convinced ourselves -- once again -- that this latest election must be the nastiest ever. That’s what the pundits tell us. And this year’s politicos do seem to exhibit a special relish in questioning the character of their erstwhile opponents. (Don’t get me wrong: There are more than enough characters to question!)
To keep the “republic-is-cratering-with-this-currrent-crop-of-would-be congresscritters” syndrome in proper perspective, I find myself returning to our Founding Fathers. In venerable Federalist No. 10, Madison warned that “factions” would divide “society into different interests” representing different political philosophies. Ambitious men in different parties would seek to arouse “mutual animosities” and “unfriendly passions,” even seek to “vex and oppress each other.” It has been thus throughout our history, except the mud-slinging partisans of Jefferson and Adams were not limited to 30 second spots in fashioning their broadsides.
This understanding of human nature’s dark side informed the Constitution the Founders bequeathed. The chief safeguard against those seeking to vex and oppress is our government of separated and diffused powers. This regime has worked pretty well -- so far.
But we should always remind ourselves that Madison, while acknowledging a “degree of depravity” in mankind, also suggested there are other qualities, which together he called “virtue,” which “justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.” And then this conclusion: “Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”
As we go to vote, with weighty issues at stake, we must hope we’re electing representatives whose virtues outweigh their vices.
Reports of voting irregularities are expected on Election Day. VoterStory.org wants to know all the juicy polling place details. The site, created by Evolve Strategies, offers a free Web widget that any site can use for collecting stories about voting experiences. Voters simply fill in an online form with the details of their incident and the system sends an e-mail to a registered voter protection organization for follow-up. Pretty cool, eh?
Top political Web sites from the 2004 elections have reemerged in 2006, according to Internet analytics firm Hitwise. Electoral-vote.com, which was the second most popular site among political watchers two years ago, has resurfaced at ninth place in Hitwise's "Lifestyle/Politics" category. Visits to the site have been increasing as poll results are updated.
Another flashback favorite gaining steam this campaign season is JibJab.com, Hitwise said. The parody site ranked 16th at the end of last week. It was the sixth most popular politics destination on the Web in 2004 when the animated video "This Land" spread far and wide.
After polls that have many Congressional races too close too call, everyone is watching to see how the get out the vote effort goes Tuesday. It's an area that some argue led the Republican victories in 2004. Since then the Democrats have spent $8 million to catch up by buying data and other technology to target its voters.
The co-founder of Voter Action Network, a company that works with Democratic groups in 32 states, says he feels good about the ground operations Democrats have Tuesday.
"I think they're going to be in for a big surprise tomorrow," Mark Sullivan said.
Josh Holmes, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee says he believes Democrats have improved their operations, but he's "comfortable with where we are" heading into Election Day.
"I'm sure they have a formidable effort. It's one we're not discounting here," Holmes said.
An article running in today's Technology Daily examines how the major television networks are utilizing Internet technologies to reach more viewers. I chatted with Michael Clemente, executive producer of ABC News Now and other TV bigwigs.
While it wasn’t included in the story, he had an interesting take on election night Web audiences. Clemente divided them into three categories: "floaters," who skim the surface of the news coverage; "swimmers," who review message boards and engage in other top-level participatory practices; and "divers," who want to be seen and heard by any means necessary (blogging, chatting, posting video, etc.).
Americans can say "'listen to me' without having to write a letter to Congress or march on Washington," he said.
Here's the scoop on CNN's invitation-only "E-lection Nite Blog Party" at Tryst in Adams Morgan. The network has a pretty interesting recipe for Tuesday night fun (or chaos), which is scheduled to last into the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Start out with equal parts lefty and righty political bloggers. Toss in free food, drink (plenty of caffeine) and Wi-Fi. Add roving video cameras to capture the drama as it unfolds. The network is planning interviews with bloggers as the returns come in (Internet reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton will be on-hand). Much of the action will air uncut on CNN's premium online video service Pipeline (for those viewers who are especially voyeuristic).
There's no telling what might happen with all of these strong opinions (and egos) jammed into one room. Of course, removed from the Internet's near-anonymity, the bloggers may actually get along in person. Or not. Whatever happens, it will be interesting and we will be there to fill you in.
Here's a list of the bloggers expected to attend:
Right-leaning: Captain's Quarters, Ankle Biting Pundits, Outside the Beltway, Townhall, RedState, wizbang, Lashawn Barber's, Althouse, National Review, Powerline, Betsy's Page.
Left-leaning: Crooks and Liars, Eschaton, Think Progress, AmericaBlog, Washington Note, Firedoglake, MyDD, Huffington Post, Pam's House Blend, Mark Lamont Blog, Talk Left.
Lost Remote, Wonkette and FishbowlDC have been thrown in for good measure.
More than a third of Americans now go online for their political news, according to a recent survey by AP and AOL news, and you can bet that all of them will be actively searching the Web during this election week.
With that in mind, National Journal's Technology Daily today launches our new blog, Tech Daily Dose. Our goal at the blog is to update subscribers and non-subscribers alike with the latest political information of interest to the technology community -- insights from our reporting, nuggets about tech issues and candidates in this year's election, and plenty more.
Two of our senior reporters, Heather Greenfield and Andrew Noyes, will provide the bulk of the campaign-related content over the next few days. I may post entries periodically as well. And we will have occasional guest posts from some of our sources in the tech industry.
We hope you'll bookmark Tech Daily Dose and add us to your RSS feeds, and we encourage you to comment at the blog and to send us your feedback about the site. You can reach me at dglover@nationaljournal.com.
Danny Glover, Managing Editor
National Journal's Technology Daily
New Media
Online Politics
Tech Policy
