Can the Internet Rig Elections?
Read more about: Blogging, Government, Irish Election 
Damien’s second post in the series on rigging an election online is up. Yesterday he went through how the web can organise cells, as it were, of supporters that are actively canvassing throughout the year-convincing, reporting and polling so as to delivery at election day.
The E.A.B. system’s Reach module allows the creation of cells of subtle volunteers, who in turn are in charge of influencing 50 people in their social grouping who would be classed as swing voters. These 50 people are all profiled and their constituency and social status are logged in the database. Also whether they are registered to vote. This is the important differentiation compared to the traditional systems.
Today it moves to the dirty work of data and digging through information on your own candidate and the oppositions. Ability to see what is said, printed and mentioned on your candidate and the oppositions is quite scary.
When policy inconsistencies and gaffs are spotted a special alert is sent out. The Tracker database can also be used to supply sympathetic media outlets and bloggers with “attack” information on opposition candidates.
Pie in the sky? Or the way of the future?
Pie in the sky. Irish politics does not run on issues like that.
I don’t really see how anything mentioned constitutes rigging.
fair point Niall, tho its damiens phrasing not mine. I would suspect that he means it in the sense of deploying ict in ways that might seem unfair or at least overly controlling of ‘open’ democratic processes? Not sure tho-head over and ask him.
Aye Simon your right in a sense but it seems that Damien is arguing that technology can win you elections in a way irish politics does run (targetting people, convincing friends, manipulating media and ‘negative’ information) rather than just the ol blogging.
To the first module of the system check out the research area of social network analysis, every major telecom is doing it to their data. So are half the social informatics researchers in the states who’re aiming to figure cell structure of terrorist cells.
To the second module of the system, checkout Excaliber I posted something on it around 2004 which Labour has been using in the UK since around 1995.
A more scholarly type person may be interested in “Think global, talk local: Getting the party political message across in the age of the Internet” or “Election Campaigning Online- German Party Websites in the 2002 National Elections” or “Voters in a Changing Media Environment- A Data-Based Retrospective on Consequences of Media Change in Germany”.
For bloggers there is a nice article on the German elections, “Weblog Campaigning in the German Bundestag Election 2005”.
These ideas aren’t new I know that FF and FG have been kicking them around for several years but of course if I said any more I’d have to kill you or charge you enough of a fee that it’d probably have the same effect.
Cian my point is that information matters little to people in Irish elections. It is done on reputation and who people meet face to face. Reputation is not made from the papers but through word of mouth. Most people are not political in this country or members of parties. Which is shrinking so the convincing friends has very limited scope.
Simon, I think Damien is suggesting that if you can have some many friends in your bebo or facebook account that it doesn’t have to be face to face anymore. Electronically canvassing a friend for support is becoming more acceptable which means that the scope could actually be increasing. There is a generational gap that exists but by the next election there will be candidates young enough for this style of approach to work, perhaps we’ll even see it in the forthcoming locals.
Yes Braz but the amount of people that are political and thus likely to be able to canvas is tiny compared to the general population even if they have 50 non-mutual friends That is still feck all people.
didn’t that thai thaskin guy having the mobile network to play with really help him to win, sending out message free to millions of young voters, I remember hearing it reported as some sort demostration of technology to progressing democracy when it was really just some rich guy abusing his business power to get elected.