This photo, along with the simple caption “Four more years” became the most tweeted and most liked on Facebook photograph ever, and it did so with incredible speed. We thought you’d like to hear the story behind it. It’s probably not what you imagined. More »
Wow, this Nate Silver guy sure is something. His relentless statistical simulations called the election perfectly, like months before it even happened, and he stuck to his guns while right-wing pundits dismissed his models as voodoo from their televised mountaintops. More »
Barack Obama’s victory last night has far-reaching fiscal, social, and military implications, all of which are familiar to anyone who kept at least one eye open during any of this year’s debates. But what do four more years mean for tech? Turns out, a lot. More »
Early in 2012, I signed up for the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns’ email lists with a rarely used old email address. While I knew that this small dataset couldn’t reveal the extreme sophistication of their email strategies, I set out to analyze the emails I’d received (and rarely read) – and discovered some surprising differences in strategy (at least as it related to the emails I was sent). More »
If you believe in the power of voting, chances are you’re going to head to a polling place sometime between now and the end of the day to cast your ballot. You’ll probably be waiting a few minutes as well. With that in mind, we tossed together 10 election day pieces for you to save to Instagram/Pocket/Readability to distract you. More »
It’s election day. Some of you have the fortune of being able to vote electronically, thus removing any confusion over whether or not that chad was hanging. Well it’s supposed to remove confusion in theory. Have you voted yet? Was it some form of an electronic ballot? Did you notice anything sketchy? Let’s talk about it. More »
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On this election day, many feel “liberated” that they have finally been able to cast their vote, but also that the campaign is over. In the excitation of the moment, many people snap a shot of their vote and post it on social networks. There are many motivations for doing so, but you should know that in certain places, this is actually illegal. For example some states prohibit the usage of photographic equipment in polling places. AllthingsD lists “Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada and Texas” as such states.
It gets worse: in some places, posting ballots to a public place can be considered to be “election fraud”, which is a felony (admittedly a weird one), but that’s the law that is in place now. It’s not clear if those rules would be enforced or not, but if the election is as tight as the polls show – anything is possible, so if you want your vote to count, be safe and be mindful about the local laws and regulations. Check more tips to stay out of trouble from citmedialaw.org Happy voting!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple goes after Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Apple publishes revised Samsung apology on its U.K. website,
If you’re heading to the polls today or already have earlier this morning, it’s important that you take the time to be proud of yourself – but not with your smartphone’s camera. Laws across these United States prohibit photography in some locations and polling locations in some states will straight up confiscate your camera-toting device if you pull it out before or after voting. If you’re unsure of your state’s laws regarding photographic equipment, (including, yes, your iPhone), it’s better to just skip it – or just take a photo of your “I Voted” sticker instead.
An awesome website by the name of Citizen Media Law Project shows a chart with all of the laws regarding “Documenting the Vote” with your state listed plainly. In Minnesota we’ve got essentially no laws expressly forbidding cameras or video recording equipment, but “the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State strongly discourages voters from using cameras or video recorders in the polling place.”
Additionally, “a voter shall not reveal to anyone in the polling place the name of any candidate for whom the voter intends to vote or has voted” is a law on the books here in Minnesota. This could very easily be used against you if you’re photographing your ballot. If you’re thinking about letting everyone know who you’re voting for, please feel free to do so, but don’t do it INSIDE the place where you’re voting.
Interestingly enough, Google is once again encouraging YouTube users to video record their voting experience. Make sure you do so according to your state’s laws regarding recording. Better having voted than having recorded what you’d intended to vote!
Also please feel free to watch the following awesome video that shows the final battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and let us know if you’re missing your favorite candidate in the video, too! Fiscal Cliff battle – fight!
Do not photograph your voting ballot today – it may be quite illegal is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The US political system being what it is, there are plenty of possibilities for a tie vote this evening. Fortunately, Randall Munroe of XKCD fame has taken a look at what will go down if the worst happens. More »
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