Election Protection Using Twitter to Defend Voting Rights

This election season, Election Protection (EP), the nation’s largest non-partisan voter protection coalition, will be using Twitter as part of its election monitoring activities.

EP is encouraging voters to send Tweets if they are experiencing problems at the polls such as “long lines, voter intimidation, suspicious behavior, voting machine malfunctions, and registration errors.”

On its website, www.866ourvote.org, EP says:

1.  Tweets should include a description of the problem and a hashtag+zip code (ex. #22205). If you know your voting precinct number, it would also be helpful to add that.

2.  Include in your tweet a simple hashtag of “EP” + state abbreviation-so if you are a voter in Virginia, include in your tweet “#EPVA”

3.  These tweet-reports will be monitored at our National Command Center. Our teams on the ground will confirm the reports and work to resolve any issue.  We may need to follow up with you for more information.

4.  Remember to add #EP2010 to all tweets associated with Election Protection. We’ll use this hashtag (#) to monitor overall engagement.

A sample Tweet will look like:

@866ourvote Long line est. wait of 2hrs. Some leaving after seeing the line #22205 precinct4 #EPVA #EP2010

In addition to Twitter, EP will also be running a hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE to help voters report problems and get information about their rights.

Learn more at http://www.866ourvote.org and follow EP on Twitter @866OURVOTE.