sms

Update II: This is also confirmed in Montana. While most people won't be fooled by this, the influx of first time voters, many connected to the election via Obama's text program, and reports of long lines conveyed by these texts, could depress turnout.

Update: Florida is confirmed and the message is much the same as that from the George Mason email. No word on where these are originating.
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Stories are beginning to break that young voters - particularly students - are receiving fraudulent emails and text messages that provide misinformation about the day, time and location that students should vote.

Ben Smith reports on an email sent to George Mason University students:

A George Mason University student forwards over a pair of emails that went out to the student body of the Virginia school:

First:

-----Original Message-----
From: ANNOUNCE04-L on behalf of Office of the Provost
Sent: Tue 11/4/2008 1:16 AM
To: ANNOUNCE04-L@mail04.gmu.edu
Subject: Election Day Update

To the Mason Community:

Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

And then:

-----Original Message-----
From: Office of the Provost on behalf of Office of the Provost
Sent: Tue 11/4/2008 8:08 AM
To: PROVOSTOFFICE-L@mail04.gmu.edu
Subject: Urgent Voting Information

Dear Colleagues,

It has come to my attention early this morning that a message was hacked into the system fraudulently stating that election day has been moved. I am sure everybody realizes this is a hoax, it is also a serious offense and we are looking into it. Please be reminded that election day is today, November 4th.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

In Austin and Houston, young voters are receiving text messages saying that Obama supporters should vote tomorrow do to long lines.

I'm also hearing - and various people are working to confirm - that young voters in Florida and Montana are receiving similar text messages. I'll update you when we get confirmation on this.

The Young Democrats are starting to push their text message reminder program. As I've noted multiple times this week, these text reminders can boost turnout by 4.6 percentage points on election day.

Dear Michael,

Do you have a million things to do before Election Day? Well, that makes two of us! We're all hard at work, going door to door and street teaming to get young voters to the polls, and we know you have a bunch of things on your plate as well. There are only a few days left and between school or work, trying to sneak in some laundry or a world series game, and making sure we elect Democrats, we're all very busy people.

Sometimes we even forget to set time aside to vote -- us! The Activists! And even more often, we forget to remind all of our friends and family to vote as we narrowly focus on our campaign's targets - forgetting how much of an impact we can have on those closest to us.

The Young Voter Revolution has a solution! We'll send you a text message on Election Day to remind you to get out to the polls. And don't worry, we didn't forget about your friends and family either; you can send them the info they need to get their text message reminders too.

So sign up by visiting
www.youngvoterrevolution.com/mobile

Please pass the above link on to your YD chapter, your email friends, to your Facebook and MySpace friends, to your coworkers, and to your family. Just get your friends and family to sign up for their reminders, and we'll do the rest - that's one thing you can check off your list!

Got your cell phone in your hand? You can also text VOTEDEM to 35328 to pledge to vote for Democrats via phone and sign up for our reminders.

So go back to your volunteering, your laundry, to studying, to work, or to that world series game - and let us worry about the rest!

Don't let up until we cross that finish line,

Tony Cani
YDA National Political Director

A new study conducted by Credo Mobile and the Student PIRGs during the 2008 primary season confirms data from 2006: text message reminders to go vote can increase voter turnout 4.6 percentage points when they are delivered on election day, and 2.6 points if delivered before election day.

You can read both the 2006 and 2008 studies here.

Why does this matter?

Young voters matter and are a very mobile population that is increasingly difficult to reach by traditional campaign outreach channels such as telephone calls to landlines.

• A quarter of Americans under the age of 25 used a mobile phone as their only telephone in the first half of 2006
• The mobile-only population is projected to reach 30 percent of the entire American public by the 2008 election
• Text/SMS messaging is already widely used among young
  people as a form of communication

Here's how they conducted the study:

On February 5th, 2008 (Super Tuesday) researchers sent text message reminders to 3600 mobile phone numbers chosen at random from a pool of 5400 mostly young people who had completed voter registration applications. Afterward, participants were matched to voter records to determine if they had voted in the election.

To spread the use of text message election reminders, Credo Mobile just launched Text Out The Vote, a service that lets you pre-load your friend's cell phone numbers into a website and have Credo text them on election day. Unfortunately, it looks like it also signs your friends up to receive SMS spam from Credo, or anyone Credo gives their list to.

Mobile Marketing Watch reports that Rock the Vote and ChaCha, a "mobile answers service" are teaming up to provide SMS answers to all your election questions:

ChaCha, a unique “mobile answers” service, has teamed with “Rock The Vote” to engage and inform voters as well as provide voting, polling and other related information for the upcoming November 4 election. With the knowledge of Rock The Vote, combined with the streamlined delivery of ChaCha, users can simply text-in their questions about the election, and receive an instant response.

Here’s how it works: users can send questions to RTVOTE (788683) and politically trained ChaCha Guides will provide informed, non-partisan answers via SMS within minutes. Potential voters can learn everything from where their polling place is, to the positions taken by the candidates on everything from energy to taxation. You can also access the service by calling 1-800-2ChaCha as well.

In theory, this sounds great. In practice, it doesn't work out so well. In light of all the recent stories about student voter suppression in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Montana, I decided to test the system out with a voting rights question. This was my text:

I am a student. What do I do if they won't let me vote?

That seemed like a reasonable request from a student who might be nervous about their registration or eligibility, or problems at the polling place. Within ten minutes I had a response:

You have to be 18 yrs of age to vote. If you are a student attending school, you can vote after school.

Not exactly a helpful answer, especially considering amount of pertinent information easily available on the Rock the Vote website. They didn't even give me the 1-866-OUR-VOTE election protection hotline . . . This service needs some more beta testing and a little more training before they roll out it.

In case you missed it . . .

• A loophole in Ohio voting law that will allow for one-stop registration and voting this fall could be a huge boon to Obama (and young voters) in the state.
• Yesterday activists launched a campaign on Facebook against Evan Bayh as the potential VP pick called 100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh. You would already know this if you were friends with Future Majority on Facebook.
• Huckabee youth group "Huck's Army" is now recruiting for McCain.
• Future Majority friend, activist, and videographer "noneck" Noel Hidalgo was deported from China this week for filming protests in Tiananmen Square. Noel and his crew might be following me around during the DNC convention producing video for FM. Let's hope it doesn't get quite so dicey in Denver.
• Jared Polis won his primary in Colorado and will go on to become the next Democratic congressman in his district. Not only that, he is the first openly gay candidate elected to congress and he may well be one of - if not the - youngest congressman in the country. I'm proud to have had Jared as a guest in our live blog series. Congrats to him and everyone who worked on the campaign.
• I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but in the next few days, Barack Obama will announce his VP nominee via text message. This was a great idea on their part. They probably received thousands of cell phone numbers that can now be used to get out the vote in November via text.
• The New York Times has more on that in Garret Graff's op-ed about text messaging in the Presidential campaign.
• Blender asked the candidates about their favorite songs. John McCain - what happened to Usher? I thought he was your favorite artist?
• The Washington Post has the skinny on the hottest parties at the DNC.
• In Nevada, a 22 year old is running against an incumbent state Senator who has held office since 14 years before his challenger was born.
• The Wall Street Journal finally picked up on James Fowler's study of the Colbert Bump.
• Generation Vote has a put together a Youth policy platform.
• The Post Chronicle has some thoughts about what Obama's youth supporters need to do post-election day.
• Tom Friedman actually wrote a decent piece about McCain's energy policy.
• It's Getting Hot in Here explains the whole "Gang of 10" energy compromise and why it's a win for Obama.
• David Burstein of 18 in '08 explains the significance of just one vote.
• Medill reports that this may be the geekiest of all conventions.
• Wow:

• The Nation notes the negative impact that complex voter registration laws have on youth turnout.
• The Wall Street Journal makes sense of the race for delegates in the Democratic nominating contest.
• Threat Level, the Wired politics blog, has a great piece in which Sarah Stirland interviews participants in the MTV/MySpace Super Dialogue about how online organizing is changing politics.
• NetSquared interviews Ben Rigby of Mobile Voter about his new book, analyzing best practices in online advocacy. Definitely worth a read.