This blog is fairly young – just over a year old now. It was one of our first ventures into expanding the County Elections Office’s presence on the web.
Since starting this blog, we’ve tried many more ways to become more “Web 2.0.”
Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum thinks that since the Millennial Generation spends so much time online using those resources, he has combined the use of several Web 2.0 avenues in hopes of engaging young people in the process of voting. Slocum said, “young people are changing our culture – they are becoming the dominant part of our society.”
The Elections Office My Space page (www.myspace.com/democracylive) was designed to attract student poll workers, impart information, and build community. It was set-up and shared among those student poll workers who signed up to work in the February 2008 Presidential Primary and kept in place through the November Presidential General. As we move into 2009, the page will be updated to become a more general source of information for current and future voters.
Facebook is a another social networking tool being utilized to attract and inform voters, particularly those that are still in high school and college. Used initially to promote student poll workers as well, the Facebook “fan page” for the Elections Office is also handy for alerting voters of opportunities for involvement and impending voter deadlines.
Our YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/democracylive, contains multiple videos containing great tips for voters as well as a video of democracyLIVE! and a how-to video for the eSlates.
During the live Election Night coverage, the Elections Office brought television viewers behind the scenes with “Anatomy of Election ‘08.” For viewers that didn’t have PenTV channel 26, the Elections Office posted a live stream on shapethefuture.org.
Our latest venture in 2.0 is Twitter, which we started using in late October. The page, http://twitter.com/smcvote, is also fed through http://www.shapethefuture.org/twitter.asp to provide readers with quick updates on the happenings of the Elections Office.
