Information Technology and Voting

From press release.

"The arrival of Information technology promises to completely upend traditional voting regulation and make most voting laws obsolete," according to Dr Steffen schmidt, prof of pol sci at Iowa State University, who teaches Electronic Democracy and Identity Theft classes.

"The emerging and merging media mean that voters will be bombarded by campaign material that is almost impossible to detect and truly impossible to regulate such as advertisements and voting appeals delivered to voters through devices such as smart phones, PDA's, iPods and other devices, "said Schmidt. "This effectively means that campaigns or issue advocacy groups can drive messages including short video clips to voters 24-7 including on the day of the election and inside the voting stations which would violate laws against last minute campaigning in or near polling places."

Schmidt added that even if official campaigns are not doing so "viral campaigning", where people pass on information and links to each other through devices will deliver millions of clever and entertaining messages through you Tube, MySpace, FaceBook and other means. "There is absolutely no way to control this free speech without throwing the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee out the window", said Schmidt.