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How does President-Elect Obama love technology? Let us count the ways. Among the features the incoming administration is adding to its much-anticipated technology ramp-up is a video version of the weekly Democratic address. From now on, the president-elect will record the address on video, then his staff will upload it to none other than YouTube, as well as Obama’s Web site (for the first video, go here).

And fear not, technophiles—there’s more. From the Washington Post:

In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.

Of course, not all of this techno-political bonanza is 100 percent original: The current administration’s Web site “offers RSS feeds, podcasts and videos of press briefings,” while the “site’s Ask the White House page has featured regular online chats dating back to 2003.” Granted, it’s pretty safe to assume online video clips of Bush didn’t garner quite the same enthusiasm.

Related:
RB: Obama Blogs? President-Elect Launches Web Site, Embraces Internet
RB: Politicians v. Technology: Obama, McCain Battle the Internet
RB: Obama Changes His View (Or, at Least, His Web Site) On Technology

Remember when the military announced it was cutting off troops’ access to YouTube, MySpace, and other video-uploading sites because of bandwidth and “security” problems—i.e. they were worried about videos like this getting uploaded and watched around the world? Well, now it seems they’ve reconsidered that decision—sort of.

Now, the military is launching its own user-generated site, called “TroopTube” (insert joke here). While registration is required, it allows members of the armed forces, along with their families, to gain a password and start uploading content. The site can also be accessed by civilian Defense Department employees and “supporters,” whatever that means.

So given the restricted access to the site, will troops be free to upload anything they like?

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After running the most technology-dominated presidential campaign in history, it’s only logical that Obama would keep the trend going into his new administration. And by all accounts, he has every intention of doing so: The Washington Post reports that the president-elect and his transition team are gearing up (pun fully intended) to “create the first truly ‘wired’ presidency.”

So far the major cyber-moves include consolidating the list of over 10 million supporter e-mail addresses gathered during the campaign, planning the transition of Obama’s 95-person “new media” campaign staff into an expanded White House operation, and biggest and flashiest of all, the launch of the president-to-be’s official Web site, change.gov. It’s self-billed as “your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration,” and so far it contains a forum to share your election day stories, a newsfeed, and lo and behold, a blog! Take that, anti-blogites—if it’s good enough for Obama, it’s good enough for us.

So is this the era of the blogger-president? Can we expect Web cams in the Oval Office and Twitters from cabinet meetings?

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Chances are you’re not reading this, because you’re standing in some epic line at a polling place. Or maybe you’ve brought your iPhone, and you’re surfing the Web to pass the timed. Either way, the polls are jammed, lines are interminable across the country, and election officials, politicos, pundits, and just about everyone else are bracing themselves for the technological messes that are sure to ensue.

The good news, according to a recent report from Election Data Services, is that the number of ballots cast on electronic voting machines will drop today for the first time since DREs wormed their way into our lives. In the 2008 election, 32.6 percent of all ballots will be recorded on an electronic voting machine, compared to 37.6 percent in 2006.

Of course, 2006 wasn’t a presidential election year, particularly one with expected “record-shattering” turnouts. By comparison, 22 percent and 29.2 percent of votes were cast electronically in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

Then there’s the little matter of key swing states, including Ohio, Indiana, and Nevada—all of which are relying heavily on electronic voting machines.

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Tomorrow, we vote. Estimates place the turnout at around 130 million or more, possibly the largest in American history. Of course, not everyone registered will necessarily be able to cast their ballot—and even uglier, not every ballot cast will necessarily be counted. Before you head to the polls tomorrow, here’s a list of all the facts you’ll need to ensure your vote doesn’t end up trapped forever in the bowels of the technology/Democratic leviathan.

Avoid being one of the 3 percent who cast ballots in error (and that’s without the machines messing up) by following these guidelines, compiled by researchers at the University of Maryland. (Hint: Beware the optical scanner.)

Last chance to check your registration! So far it’s been one of the biggest problems voters have faced at the polls.

Having trouble with your DRE or optical scan ballot? Look for a camera to document your woes: PBS and YouTube are joining forces to collect and stream user-generated video from polling places nationwide.

If there’s no video evidence, you can still exercise your right to protest crummy voting technology via the Internets.

Speaking of which, technology has enjoyed unprecedented domination over this election—which might continue into the next administration.

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The Army has always been clever at thinking up all the vast and strange ways our enemies might use to kill us (or vice versa). Now Wired writes that an intelligence report is circulating containing warnings that terrorists might plan an attack using that deadliest of all technological terrors: Twitter.

The 11-page paper in question [pdf] is not solely devoted to Twitter—in total, it includes the following topics:

Pro Terrorist Propaganda Mobile Interfaces
Mobile Phone GPS for Movements, Ops, Targeting, and Exploitation
The Mobile Phone as a Surveillance Tool
Voice Changers for Terrorist Phone Calls
A Red Teaming Perspective on the Potential Terrorist Use of Twitter

In assessing Twitter’s danger to the free world, the authors note that the micro-blogging site was used as a “countersurveillance” tool by activists at the Republican National Convention, who used it to Tweet the location of local police. (What they fail to mention is that said local police could have pretty easily monitored the Tweets in question and adjusted their plans accordingly). The paper then goes on to lay out three possible “Twitter Attack!” scenarios:

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Voting and technology have nothing resembling a smooth relationship. And as Nov. 4th fast approaches with its expected record voter turnouts, there’s a pretty good (translation: 99.999 percent) chance that the computers and scanners we rely on to register our identities, store our personal information, and correctly record our votes will fail us—in fact, screw-ups are already being reported, and it’s not even the October home stretch.

Given this heartening news, the question is not “Will voting technology break down during this election?” but rather “How can I keep the cyberworld from chewing up and spitting out my vote before I’ve even cast it?” Thankfully, while voter databases and e-voting machines are apt—perhaps even destined—to crash and burn, voters have an ally in the Internet, which offers a means of keeping an eye on details like whether you’re registered correctly (or at all).

So how likely is it that your local voter database has already made an error? Well, to test the system we decided check our registration status in New York, RB’s home state. And while RB endeavors (ahem) to remain non-partisan, we were very not at all surprised to find the following error:

To avoid suffering the same fate, we suggest you check your registration status online (all voters in New York can use this link). Find any errors in your home state’s database? Let us know in the comments!

Related:

Wired: The Interactive Voting Problems Map

DISCOVER: Protect Your Vote with Invisible Ink
RB: Voting in America: Let the Pre-Game Mess Begin!
RB: Sarah Palin Still Butchering Science, Redux
RB: Rumors Aside, Sarah Palin Is Still Butchering Science
RB: Don’t Know Much About Technology: McCain Tackles ScienceDebate Questions

Even with all the melee over hockey moms and plumbers and fake registration cards, technology has been a dominating story in this campaign. The candidates have used it, and benefited from it, in varying degrees (campaign ads in video games may take the cake), and the Web has taken its place as a major game changer in American politics. But there was always the lingering downside: Just as the Internet can build you up, so can it rip you down.

Now, CNN has a report on the measures the candidates are taking to mop up the rumors, attacks, and lies that bubble like oil through the airwaves—and yes, there’s a lot of them.

In fact, this campaign has seen the highest number of Internet smears in history—hardly surprising given the continually-increasing reach and scope of the medium. So how do these intrepid (and extremely overworked) political staffers manage to scour the reaches of the Internet and counter all the garbage thrown at their candidates?

A source inside Obama’s campaign spoke to DISCOVER, and explained the Democratic team’s strategy as follows:

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Despite all the wonders modern technology has dumped on us, it has yet to create a foolproof, fraudproof way for 150 million Americans to vote. But while the nation’s smartest computer scientists and cryptography experts have been busy churning out ideas to solve our voting woes once and for all, their efforts may be moot if we can’t figure out how to get eligible voters registered in the first place.

You’d think that after the last election’s slew of technological fiascoes, states would have ironed out their database woes. Not so: Wired (via ABC News) reports that glitches in states’ voter databases are as bountiful as always, and could wind up leaving thousands disenfranchised. The biggest issue is the haphazard creation of centralized databases, which were mandated for federal elections following the debacle of 2000. The law’s intent, as usual, was to do good—consolidating voter lists into a single database would presumably simplify the process and keep voters from being arbitrarily turned away at the polls.

Unfortunately, as with voting machines, the reality has been closer to chaos: The databases, which are unregulated by any federal agency, have been plagued by human error, confusion, cost overloads, and a smörgåsbord of other mess-ups.

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If there’s one thing this election season has taught us, it’s that there’s no hiding in the Internet—and that includes politicians vying for the nation’s highest offices. For starters, of all the criticisms of McCain’s views, record, character, and policies, one of the stickiest so far has been his self-proclaimed inability to use the Web.

Then last week brought Yahoomail-gate, with the infamous hacker group Anonymous accessing VP hopeful Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account, revealing to the world that she did indeed use her personal e-mail for official business, and that she liked to send and receive pictures of her kids. (Scandalous!) A quick and dirty FBI investigation soon indicated that the hacker may be none other than the son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell.

Equally diligent watchdogs also noticed some strange happenings over on Obama’s official campaign Web site—the prominence of which we’ve discussed before.

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Like many, we were Twitter skeptics at first. “Who on earth would ever use this?” we thought a year or so ago, when the micro-blogging service was winding its way through the word-of-mouth (and -blog) channels.

But now, given the site’s major role in the presidential campaign, its history of freeing jailed Americans abroad, and even its ability to facilitate public safety during a national disaster, we’re convinced: Twitter is freakin’ brilliant, and may change the way we communicate on a global scale.

ABC News writer Ki Mae Heussner reports that New Orleans natives and other hardy souls who faced off with Gustav were Twittering up a, er, storm, sending messages about evacuations and shelters, letting friends and family members know their location, and reporting on storm conditions as they watched them.

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It’s no secret that, when it comes to Internet savvy, the two presidential candidates are about as different as BASIC and LINUX. And nowhere does their Web contrast play out more than in their respective campaigning. The Economist reports that in June, Obama raised $52 million in total, $31 million of which came from donations of $200 or less that were mostly generated by his Web site. He also has 1.3 million Facebook supporters to McCain’s 200,000, and also keeps regularly updated profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social networks.

And then there’s video. While YouTube has been embraced by just about everyone as a great way to spread viral campaign messages, Obama has his own video team on the payroll. So far, the group has shot more than 2,000 hours of footage and uploaded around 1,110 videos on his YouTube channel–more than four times the content on McCain’s channel. And all that work has paid off: The Illinois Senator’s videos have been viewed 52 million times to McCain’s 9.5 million.

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Twitter is quickly inserting itself into the political mainstream, helping to extract American travelers from sticky situations abroad and even giving members of Congress a way to connect with their constituents. Now, Footnoted blogger Michelle Leder has discovered that the Securities and Exchange Commission has its very own Twitter feed. Under the moniker SEC_Investor_Ed, the SEC has been posting updates since late July of this year.

As Leder notes, the SEC’s Tweets are basically a condensed selection of the (not really all that exciting) press releases available on the organization’s Web site, and it was started the day before the SEC voted unanimously to provide new guidelines for public companies’ Web pages. Still, someone must be interested: So far, 275 followers have subscribed to the feed.

Earlier this year, the realms of law and new media collided when Lori Drew was hit with federal charges for creating a fake MySpace page and harassing a neighboring teenager, who then committed suicide. In another case of courtrooms v. technology, prosecutors are reportedly searching Facebook and MySpace for photos of defendants to use as character evidence in sentencing hearings.

CNN reports that party photos and pictures of defendants drinking or looking unrepentant have resulted in harsher sentences for people charged in drunk driving accidents, with prosecutors presenting the incriminating pictures as evidence that the defendant lacked remorse.

In one instance, a prosecutor showed the court a Powerpoint presentation of party photos that had been posted on Facebook by a 20-year-old defendant after he nearly killed another driver in a three-car collision. The pictures depicted him at a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit labeled “Jail Bird.” The judge slammed him with a two-year jail sentence.

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CNN is reporting that, in an effort to foster quicker and easier communication with constituents, members of Congress are turning to Twitter and other message-streaming sites to relay and receive information. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, is reportedly “at the forefront of a new effort to reach constituents” through the sites as part of an effort to “’shine sunlight in every dark corner of the Congress.’”

Of course, how exactly elected officials plan to use/are using Twitter isn’t made clear—are Congressmen subscribing to voters’ feeds? Tweeting from their cell phones during committee meetings? But use of technology to increase government transparency has become a general theme in this election—though Culberson’s staunch support appears to carry the issue across party lines.

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