Using mobile technology for voting has been around for a while. In Europe, several countries allow voting for elections. Even the Prime Minister of Italy txt everyone to remind them to go out and vote. In the USA, we have been exposed through the partnership between American Idol and AT&T Wireless (now Cingular). Now, Mobile Voter has put up a billboard in San Francisco to get people to register and vote. It’s a big step to get both more people to register and perhaps even use SMS for voting. 
From Mobile Voter: Voter registration is a key barrier to voting - especially among youth. “Nearly one-third of college students say that they do not know how to request an absentee ballot - 92% say that they would vote ‘if the process of registering and voting by absentee ballot were made easier…’ says the Harvard University Institute of Politics. As the native tongue of young people, texting can break down these barriers.
Perhaps we could remove some of the problems associated with faulty electronic voting machines, hanging chads, and other problems associated with Election Day in the US, by switching to SMS voting? With the USA at over 50% mobile phone penetration, that’s roughly 150M subscribers. In the last election (2004), the total voting population was measured at over 221M. The total registered voters was nearly 175M, while the voter turnout was slightly above 122M. This represents 55.3% of the population voting in the last election. Clearly, this could be inline to setup electronic voting via SMS or MMS even. The biggest hurdle would be the government, both at the federal, state and local levels. It is abundantly clear that embracing technology and adopting it within government is a severe challenge. But as more people own a mobile phone, particular those of voting age; it could be a very useful tool. Absentee ballots can be counted electronically instead of manually. Voting can take place anywhere and not just at designated polling stations. This might actually be a way to reduce the friction of voting! 2004 Election Stats: infoplease.com
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[...] email, YouTube and text message. A long while ago, I wrote about how an eventual service could be vote by text. This might be one of those moments where it can shift in that direction. With over 84% of the [...]