Voter Fraud- There's an App for That?

The future of political volunteerism launched on April 3, 2010.

I've held off jumping into the iPad fray for the most part, waiting until I can actually buy the 3G version outright before making my own conclusions. But there was always one thing I knew the iPad could truly revolutionize- and it's already in development.

According to Tech President via TechRepublican-

Project Vote, which describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that promotes higher voter registration rates in low-income and minority communities, announced last week that they are working on a mobile-device-friendly voter registration application, according to a press release, that will work on anything from the BlackBerry to the magical iPad.

But a magic wand it ain't: In the release, Project Vote admits that there are only four states (Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) that allow electronic voter registration. …

Using a mobile voter registration application, a volunteer canvassing a neighborhood […] is supposed to be able to collect the information of a prospective voter right there on his iPad, then electronically transmit that information along to that state's board of elections, or secretary of state, or whichever group is responsible for administering elections and voter registration.

Pretty impressive, no? This could truly revolutionize the way we think of political volunteerism. This has already been used in small part in several races recently- from the McDonnell to the Scott Brown race- I even was able to use a blackberry in a local special election.

However, while the Project Vote organization calls itself "a nonpartisan organization", when you do more digging you find this little gem-

Working with our field partner, the community organization ACORN, Project Vote in 2007-2008 conducted the largest and most comprehensive voter registration drive in the history of our two organizations, a 21-state community-based operation that succeeded in collecting over 1.3 million voter registration applications.

That's right- the same Acorn that was recently involved in the prostitution scandals, and more importantly, embroiled in the voter fraud scandals over the last few elections. Project Vote claimed responsibility for the surge in support for Obama campaign in the last election, and was also critical in the 1992 election, bringing in more than 150,000 new African American voters. While Politifact says that Project Vote is was directly an arm of ACORN in 1992, their relationship since then has been rather murky, with Project Vote defending accusations against ACORN as "absolutely false"- even as the FBI launched a probe into the allegations of fraud.

The simple truth is that it's just a matter of time before we have an entirely paperless campaign experience. Volunteers might be able to download an application onto their own devices and head out to targeted areas near them via their GPS-enabled Google Maps service. From there, they can go door-to-door, armed with an entire visual interactive experience for constituents. Or perhaps they'll collect names and signatures for ballot initiatives or primary ballots, showing a compelling video that leads directly into a signup form. All of this will come directly from a single paperless device that broadcasts the signature to the database instantaneously.

But what happens when this tool is first used by the same people who infamously enrolled the Dallas Cowboys to vote in Nevada? The potential for abuse is tremendous. This will be something Republicans need to watch carefully, as oversight on matters like this will be hard to scale. As a developer of iPhone applications, the potential excites me- I would love to have a client that would recognize the potential of such a service, but I am also concerned about the potential impact on elections when people attempt to use this for more nefarious purposes. We need to move political volunteerism into the future, but not at the cost of election fraud and manipulation.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like 2006

Perhaps a little late as it's now Christmas eve, but I wrote this little diddy inspired by the season and the times, with a little parody thrown in to boot. Feel free to repost with credit.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like 2006 (sung to the tune of "Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas)

Parody by Brad Tidwell, December 2009

Its beginning to look a lot like 2006
Every day some more,
But this time its the Dems you see worried that they will be
Kicked right out the door.

Its beginning to look a lot like 2006
Everywhere you look,
Take a look at the congressmen, shivering once again,
With retirements and presidents called a crook.

A lot of meritless pork and a knife and a fork
Was the desire of Barney (Frank) and Reid
Money for nuts (ACORN) and political ruts
Haunted Pelosi and Dodd
And all of us can hardly wait for polls to open again

Its beginning to look a lot like 2006
Everywhere you go
There's a tension in the air, politicians should beware
The feeling that the Democrats must go

Its beginning to look a lot like 2006
And these polls make news
And the people will vote cause the bills that they wrote
Were what made them lose.

Merry Christmas all!

Obama and International Perception

On the heels of my last blog based on a facebook conversation I had with a friend, I received this message from a high-school friend who is now living in Brazil-

Hey brad, I have just seen your protesting Obama pictures. I wanna ask you something... here in Brazil, we get the news that America loves Obama, is there just a small group of people that doesn't like him or its a large thing and we get manipulated information?

As I'm continuing to receive messages like this from interested friends, I may just open this up as a future feature. You can feel free to message me at facebook.com/bradtidwell1 with any political questions you may want to ask. But without further ado, this was my reply-

The Healthcare Debate, Simplified.

Recently I received a Facebook message from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a while, which started off with “you have to be the most vocal person on my friend list about all things politics.” Intrigued, I read on.

My friend was concerned about the healthcare crisis, and he had a problem I’ve found all-too familiar with other friends I’ve talked to about the issue. There are so many contrary messages being put out by both sides it can be hard to distinguish between them.

The last part of the message read “I just want your opinion and feedback, I don’t keep up with the news or politics too much so I don’t know what details or lies have been proposed by either side.”

As I’ve spent a good amount of time looking into this, I decided to take the time and answer his question in a straightforward manner, with some level of depth, but without the technical language or assumption of shared knowledge/philosophy. After writing it, I felt I should share it with everyone as more people should be able to understand these issues. While it’s different from many of my other posts and has fewer direct links and less in-depth discussion, I feel it fills a need for straightforward talk about the healthcare situation.

So without further ado, my reply.

Win $100 for Reporting Campus Leftist Abuse!

As you may know, I’ve been working with CampusReform.org through my job at the Leadership Institute. Since our official launch, we’ve been hard at work, helping conservative organizations across the country network and stay active on their campuses.

Now, we’ve given college students the chance to do something really powerful with the website- report leftist abuses. These can range from radical professors enforcing their views on students to largely leftist speaker programs to categorical denial of equal treatment of conservative organizations. You can find more examples here.

To help promote our new initiative, we’re launching a daily contest for college students exposing these leftist abuses. College students exposing stories of leftist abuse or bias are entered to win a $100 prize which will be given out every day between Tuesday, Sept. 29 and Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009. So now is the time to enter! You can submit your story here.

Top Tips from the UMD Obama Protest

In the aftermath of the UMD Conservative Action Coalition's protest against Obama's speech at UMD, there are a few lessons we can all learn from their organization and management. So for future protest organizers, here are a few tips I picked up:

• Make sure there are plenty of supplies to go around. This means bringing water, sports drinks, snacks and whatever else may be necessary (it was overcast so we didn't need sunscreen, but it may be helpful elsewhere).
• Look for the media angle. Find some major story in the news, and set up talking points and one-liners about that news story to use in discussion with media and sign slogans. Find whatever hot button issues there are, controversial quotes or figures, and find an angle you can use for your group. For our protest, we had signs saying "Joe Wilson was Right", and that immediately attracted the attention of the media.
• Bring lots of large, easy to read signs. This is important to set up beforehand, as if additional people come, they can also use the signs. Use the prepared short one-liners, and make sure the words are written in thick lettering so they can be seen from far away. Read more suggestions for signs here.

Serena, Kanye, Wilson and the GOP's Crisis of Coverage

Serena Williams lost the tennis match.

But for the most part, unless we had been watching the game, we wouldn’t all know that.

It’s because of the video of her actions afterwards that literally everyone knows about it.

Beyonce did not win the VMA music award for her music video.

But, again, most people not watching wouldn’t have focused on that aspect, or realized the significance.

It’s because of the video of Kanye West’s actions that literally everyone sees that.

Obama lied about the coverage of illegal immigrants in the new healthcare bill.

But if nothing had happened when he said that, few if any major media would have attached any significance to that statement.

It’s because Joe Wilson was on video yelling out “You lie!” from the middle of Congress that any news coverage went to Obama’s false claim.

While generally I won’t post something contrary to another conservative associate, I feel here it’s necessary to give a counterpoint to James Kane’s article over at NextGenGOP about Joe Wilson and the GOP image problem.