SNS To Bring Voters to the Ballot?

Judith Meskill ponders on the net effect of using SNS and the upcoming US political election. This year has certainly been the most active in terms of use of the Internet. She quotes Laila Weir from newsdesk.org:

”... Both the Bush and Kerry campaigns maintain websites enabling visitors to register to vote, get contacts for local media, recruit friends to join the campaign and contact undecided voters.

Volunteers are responding in droves.

As of mid-August, 82,000 volunteers had been recruited by friends through the Bush campaign’s website, said Michael Turk, the president’s e-campaign director.

He also said that supporters used the website to send 325,395 letters to newspapers, and have donated $8.7 million online.

The Kerry campaign has done even better: Almost 500,000 volunteers have signed up online and the campaign raised more than $81 million online during the primary cycle, according to a staff member.

What’s more, the Democrat’s campaign has made a specific effort to cultivate the grassroots potential of social networking websites, with their largely youthful user groups…”

Source: Social Software Weblog, "Will Online Social Networking Deliver Voters?"

If you're not registered, and eligible, I hope you'll get the chance to do it.