You’ve probably heard a lot about possible voter fraud on Tuesday, as there as been a lot of potential for voter fraud. But few (including the Rs, who are MORE CONCERNED THAN EVER) seem inclined to tell voters how, exactly, to do something about it. It is, unfortunately, a little more complicated than yelling and pointing. Stepping up to the plate this year to make reporting concerns as easy and as public as possible are two organizations: the grass roots group Twitter Vote Report and the more corporate-y (they have consultants!) Election Protection, who is also partnered with a ton of other organizations, including NBC. Both groups are encouraging voters to use Twitter as a kind of panopticon of the polling process. I assume you’re following all the right people already, but interested parties should also follow 866ourvote to for real-time poll watching. After the jump, a memo from the group, noting the specific conventions for how to report your own observations and how it works.
- People can follow our Twitter account and tweet us with any questions or voting problem reports.
- On Election Day, if a voter experiences any problems (i.e. long lines, machine malfunction, suspicious behavior at the polls, voter intimidation, etc.), they can report the problem to @866ourvote.
- The report should be hashtagged #EP + state abbreviation (i.e. If the voter is voting in VA, the tweet should be tagged “#EPva”). The tweet should include at a minimum, a description of the problem and a hashtag of the voter’s zip code (i.e. #22205). Precinct numbers would be helpful but are not required.The tweet-report will be monitored by Election Protection’s state captain, who will confirm the reports and work to resolve any issues.
- We are also partnering with Twitter Vote Report, which will be aggregating all tweets tagged with #votereport.
- The site will also instruct anyone who is experiencing voting problems to add the #EP + state abbreviation tag
- The zip codes from the #votereport tweets will be tracked on Twitter Vote Report map, giving a quick visual of the voting report hot-spots across the nation.
- Election Protection will be re-tweeting reports and giving updates throughout the day from the @866ourvote account
- The #votereport tag is basically for anyone who voted to tell about their voting experience. The #EP(statecode) tag is to report any problems at the polls. They will monitoring the tweets as they are come in on Election Day and will also be alerting us to any problem “hotspots” they see developing.
