This isn’t the first email I’ve received since I asked you to send me your accounts of voting experiences. This is the email I received last night that gave me the idea in the first place.
From Brian Nicks:
Want to know what this image is? It’s a picture I took with my cellphone-camera of an electronic voting machine screen. I took it today when I went down to vote for the next President of the Unites States in Santa Clara California. The screen says “Vote Save Error #9. Use the Backup Voting Procedure.” A news crew was on hand to film Californians using the voting machines. I pointed to this particular screen and said “There’s your story – right there. I just took a picture of the screen and plan to share it with 6.4 billion of my closest friends on the Internet tonight. I suggest you do the same.” To my astonishment, the cameraman did shoot some footage of the screen, though I don’t know what was shown later on television.
Now that I’ve told you the story behind the picture, I need not mention the maelstrom of thoughts that go through my head whenever I look at it – the picture is testament enough. The next revolution will not be televised. The next revolution will be blogged.
The Participatory Panopticon at the Polls
The outcome of tomorrow’s election in the US may be decided by cell phones. I don’t just mean the percentage of voters who, by using…