October 11, 2005
R U Registered 2 Vote?
Mike Grenville for 160characters.org, reports on a billboard campaign launched in San Francisco to get young Chinese americans to register to vote using SMS.
"The campaign aims to register voters in San Francisco using Mobile Voter's text messaging service in association with the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC).
By texting a keyword such as "ivote" to 80837, voters will be able to request registration forms to be sent to them and instructions as well as voting reminders prior to upcoming elections.
"As the first of its kind in the U.S., this campaign is an experiment" said Ben Rigby from MobileVoter. "We'll be evaluating the effectiveness of different outreach methods including billboards, taxi-top, and magazine ads."
The next phase of the campaign will be to enlist local establishments to give away their goods (muffins, ice-cream, dim-sum, etc) when people use Mobile Voter at their location.
For example, at a bakery we'll place a poster that encourages voter registration and promises a free cake to everyone who texts "cake" to 80837. The user can text-in while waiting in line and show a "redeem-code" to the cashier by the time they reach the end of the line."
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