Tech of the 2012 Presidential Election – The Verge

After 2012 election, Republicans learn hard lessons about the power of social media

2013-02-15T14:07:49-05:00

Mitt Romney writes RNC speech on an iPad

Young, tech-savvy Republicans are using Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential election to teach more seasoned party operatives the importance of social media in rallying votes, Robert Draper reports for The New York Times Magazine. Draper's piece is more than just a crunchy political post mortem, offering an entertaining and insightful look at the Grand Old Party's quest to remake itself for the social age.

One right-leaning digital advocacy firm, Red Edge, has been showing fellow Republicans a presentation on the digital disparity between the two parties. Obama's Reddit IaMa is among the topics covered:

"Then, once people think we've gotten t …

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Inside the Obama Campaign’s Team Tech

2012-11-15T04:47:49-05:00

harper reed (harperreed.org)

Over the course of the recent election cycle you might have heard references to the Obama campaign's focus on tech solutions and the corresponding edge it had in the presidential race - especially when compared with the competition. Ars Technica takes a look at the innerworkings of the incumbent president's Team Tech, and how former Threadless CTO (and awesome Chrome extension author) Harper Reed's group of engineers used Amazon Web Services, some clever code, and a startup mentality to get out the vote. Understandably, Reed stops short of suggesting the team's Narwhal software was the deciding factor in the contest, saying "I truly believe …

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Killer fail: how Romney’s broken Orca app cost him thousands of votes

2012-11-09T18:00:42-05:00

via pbs.twimg.com

A few days before the presidential election, Mitt Romney's campaign announced what it hoped would be its secret weapon at the polls. Dubbed Project Orca, it let volunteers use a web app to search for and mark off voters as they left the polling location, then collected the data to use in projections or check which Romney supporters might need a call. "When the exit polls come out, we won't pay attention to that," Communications Director Gail Gitcho told PBS. "We will have had much more scientific information just based on the political operation we have set up."

Project Orca was designed to replace the standard phone- and paper-based get-ou …

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Number crunchers, ascendant: how data was the real winner in Obama’s reelection

2012-11-07T11:34:02-05:00

2012 US election ballot Obama Romney (STOCK)

Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama secured another four years in office, Time is offering up an exclusive peek at how his campaign operation managed to thwart Mitt Romney's White House aspirations. Put simply, the key ingredient was data. During Obama's initial 2008 bid for office, his team had already embraced technology in a greater capacity than any before it, assembling massive email lists and other targeted initiatives that earned Obama historic fundraising tallies. But for 2012, campaign manager Jim Messina wanted to take things even further.

Obama's campaign has always favored hard data over gut instinct

To get there, his …

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Obama’s ‘Four more years’ victory photo already the most retweeted and liked of all time

2012-11-07T00:27:00-05:00

barack michelle obama tweet

Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States, and it looks like he's taken another prize as well - he can now lay claim to the most popular tweet of all time. The tweet, which simply states "Four more years" alongside a photo of Obama embracing his wife Michelle, has been retweeted over 320,000 times and counting. Buzzfeed points out that this beat the previous record - said to have been set by Justin Bieber - after just 22 minutes, and the gap has since risen to more than 100,000.

Twitter's Government feed has also confirmed that this year's Election Day was the "most tweeted about event in US political history," with …

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Seeing through the hologram: network TV’s ridiculous election technology

2012-11-06T18:20:46-05:00

CNN Virtual Senate

In 2008, CNN's reporting of the presidential election was overshadowed by its "hologram": a ring of 35 cameras projected correspondent Jessica Yellin from Chicago to Wolf Blitzer's New York studio. While not technically a true hologram, it was certainly impressive, evoking Star Wars' Princess Leia - who would be referenced endlessly in the coming days. But as CNN called state after state, my friends and I weren't amused. We were there to see the race, not a gimmick that was indistinguishable from special effects on a TV screen. Four years later, the technological spectacle will be even bigger, and just as unrelated to actual changes in repor …

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President Obama posts message on Reddit urging users to vote before the polls close

2012-11-06T17:56:16-05:00

President Obama AMA

President Obama is no stranger to Reddit - he hosted a brief "ask me anything" session back in August. Now, with just over two hours left until the polls close on the east coast, the president has jumped back on Reddit and posted a message urging users to get out there and vote, "whatever your political persuasion." For those that already voted, President Obama requested that users spread the word to friends and family - "think of it as upvoting," the president said. While it's highly likely that the president simply had one of his campaign staff type out the brief message, it's good to see he hasn't forgotten the denizens of the internet as …

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Feed the machine: America’s stumble through a decade of electronic voting

2012-11-06T13:01:15-05:00

voting machines lead

On October 25, President Barack Obama returned to Chicago, Illinois, walking into the Martin Luther King Community Center in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood to cast his vote. Like about a third of American voters, he did so before Election Day. And also like many Americans, he used an electronic voting system - he submitted his ballot using a 15-inch touchscreen machine known as the Sequoia AVC Edge.

That seemingly minor detail holds significance for only the collection of computer scientists, security professionals, statisticians, and activists who've spent the last decade or so monitoring the seemingly inevitable rise of electronic vo …

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Uber offering free rides to voting locations during Presidential Election

2012-11-05T15:37:03-05:00

Uber for iPhone

In what appears to be an attempt to save face after drastically raising its black car service rates following Hurricane Sandy, Uber has announced that it will be giving new users free trips to voting stations on November 6th. Through the partnership with Rock the Vote, first-time Uber users can travel to or from their local polling locations free of charge. Of course, there are a few caveats: the ride(s) must begin or end at polling stations, they have to occur during voting hours, and the offer only applies to first-time users. Additionally, Uber only covers up to $20.12 in travelling fees; any amount above that must be paid by the customer …

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Google giving customized results when people search for Obama, but not Romney

2012-11-05T02:42:12-05:00

barack obama google

Google shows personalized search results that prioritize Barack Obama for users that have recently searched for the President, but Mitt Romney isn't getting the same treatment. That's the result of a Wall Street Journal investigation into the search company's algorithm, which found that terms such as "Iran," "Medicare," and "gay marriage" would all return results related to President Obama if an "Obama" query had previously been entered. These results were marked in gray type stating "You recently searched for Obama," but the same reportedly did not happen for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It's unclear if there are any terms …

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