Not This Time: a short PSA for fellow citizen journalists.
Are there thugs at your polling place? Self possessed touch screen voting machines that love Republican candidates even though you don't? Just want to indulge your hidden reporter or get on the rec list with a tearjerking video showing ancient Aunt Lou voting for Obama?
Video the Vote.
Don't have a cell phone with a built in camera? Get a Camera! Free!
More details below the fold.
Here's Judy Woodruff promoting the project:
Minkster's dairy, SCARY: Voting machine didn't want me to vote for Obama, made me wonder why, in this day and age, we aren't deluged with cell phone videos of touchscreen voting machines errors and bad behavior at the polls.
On Thursday, robertacker13's diary, Bullying Voters at the Polls Today in NC, made the rec list. We should be camera ready and filming this kind of behavior everywhere.
Now when minkster went to vote he found his touchscreen voting machine wrongly recorded his vote. He was able to correct it, but he makes the valid point that many people, particularly the elderly and less than tech savvy voters may not catch errors and may not realize it can be fixed.
If a subsequent voter at the same machine films the inaccuracies, we at least have documentation.
robertacker13 reported GOPers pulling people out of voting lines to give them republican literature and begging them to reconsider their vote. Pulling anyone out of line is actionable. So is electioneering within a certain distance of polls. Record this behavior.
And maybe you can show Aunt Mildred or Grandpa how to use the contraption.
Here's how to get a free flip camera:
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What is YouTube? Eh, I dunno, but they're all over this Video You Vote thingie. Here's another project in conjunction with PBS NewsHour (for highschool students):
The NewsHour and PBS are partnering with YouTube on an exciting new project called "Video Your Vote," which will look at the health of democracy in America by focusing on issues surrounding voting and attitudes towards voting. Classrooms across the country are eligible to receive a free Flip camera, or can use school cameras, to capture election-related videos. Each class will record and upload 10 short videos about the voting experience, contributing to a special YouTube pool of clips on the topic.
YOUTUBE IS GIVING AWAY FLIP CAMERAS FOR FREE SO THAT YOU CAN FILM WHATEVER YOU WANT IN FRONT OF THE POLLS AND THEY'RE DOING IT FOR HIGHSCHOOL STUDENTS AS WELL AS REGULAR VOTERS. If you don't have time to get a camera, use your cell phone!
The point here is not only that you can film intimidation at the polls and inaccurate voting machines. It's that YouTube is on this. They want you to film. They want you to post your film. Not all of these projects say this is to record broken machines, but hey, how could anyone miss that?
I don't care how many idiots scream "landslide" or "it's over." Don't believe it for a second. And if you believe that the folks who bring you "Obama is a terrorist" robocalls or send out "Obama Bucks" won't try to pull stuff at the polls, again, well, you haven't been paying attention for the last 8 years.
Not this time, folks, without documentation.
We will now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Update: Here's some info on state polling place photography laws.