Mixing up old-school with 2.0 voter registration tech
Larry Miller/Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune
Issue date: 10/5/08 Section: Politics
(NNPA) - With most voter registration deadlines only days away for the historic 2008 presidential election, record numbers of new voters are still expected to register and vote for the first time.
Many of those new voters will be young African Americans, casting ballots in their first presidential election.
To facilitate and encourage those potential voters, new NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous unveiled an online voter registration initiative this week for a generation weaned on the technology of the Internet.
The initiative, Upload to Uplift, uses Web 2.0 technology to encourage visitors to register and upload the e-mail addresses of family and friends who are not registered. Jealous said the new initiative is the perfect way to reach out to the estimated 8 million unregistered Black voters.
"We took a standard voter registration form and hooked it up to the technology," Jealous said. "People can go online and basically canvas their friends through the Web and encourage their friends to vote. This is my third decade of doing voter registration and this is beyond the bare knuckle, walking the streets tactics. This technology is one more way to reach the 8 million Blacks who are not registered to vote. This combines old school NAACP tactics with new school technology. We're very excited about this."
According to Jealous, who has been doing voting registration since he was 14, visitors to the NAACP Web site, www.naacp.org, can connect to the Upload to Uplift link and complete, print and mail the registration form before the organization's Oct. 6 deadline.
Corporate, community partners and bloggers are also encouraged to download the widget and place it on their site.
"The technology will capture information like e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers and individuals will get text messages encouraging them to vote," Jealous said. "The NAACP has had a history of transforming this country and we will transform the electoral process. We can do it by registering every last voter, verifying every last voter, mobilizing every last voter, protecting every last voter and ensuring that every last vote is counted."
Many of those new voters will be young African Americans, casting ballots in their first presidential election.
To facilitate and encourage those potential voters, new NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous unveiled an online voter registration initiative this week for a generation weaned on the technology of the Internet.
The initiative, Upload to Uplift, uses Web 2.0 technology to encourage visitors to register and upload the e-mail addresses of family and friends who are not registered. Jealous said the new initiative is the perfect way to reach out to the estimated 8 million unregistered Black voters.
"We took a standard voter registration form and hooked it up to the technology," Jealous said. "People can go online and basically canvas their friends through the Web and encourage their friends to vote. This is my third decade of doing voter registration and this is beyond the bare knuckle, walking the streets tactics. This technology is one more way to reach the 8 million Blacks who are not registered to vote. This combines old school NAACP tactics with new school technology. We're very excited about this."
According to Jealous, who has been doing voting registration since he was 14, visitors to the NAACP Web site, www.naacp.org, can connect to the Upload to Uplift link and complete, print and mail the registration form before the organization's Oct. 6 deadline.
Corporate, community partners and bloggers are also encouraged to download the widget and place it on their site.
"The technology will capture information like e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers and individuals will get text messages encouraging them to vote," Jealous said. "The NAACP has had a history of transforming this country and we will transform the electoral process. We can do it by registering every last voter, verifying every last voter, mobilizing every last voter, protecting every last voter and ensuring that every last vote is counted."
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