Is anybody out there working on some sort of massively-distributed, Internet-coordinated grassroots election monitoring effort?

As the Bush administration’s edifice of lies begins to collapse around it, it’s increasingly likely that desperate Republicans will turn to dirty tricks to win the 2004 elections, just like they did in Florida in 2000.

It seems to me that somebody should be trying to coordinate thousands of volunteers to go out to polling places around the country on election day to

• Watch for violations of elections rules, people being turned away from the polls, etc.

• Document any observed problems in near-real-time (phonecams? instant messaging? web-backed databases!) so that if any suspicious patterns emerge, they can be identified and responsed to immediately.

Basically, I’m talking about a high-tech version of the election monitoring work that a number of organziations conduct in emerging democracies around the world.

If nothing else, organizing such an effort would put potential troublemakers on notice that they are being watched, and might help dissuade those who might consider trying to tip the scales of democracy.

Dave Winer has an interesting addition to the fast-growing pile of punditry about what the rise and collapse of “Internet-powered” Howard (Dean) means to the future of politics:

Technologically we’re ready to route around the news channels. Had Dean decided to help develop the human network of citizen journalists, providing coverage not just of his campaign, and not just the good spin of his campaign, he might have been able to survive the onslaught of the television networks…. In the meantime, the techniques that the Dean campaign could have used are available to any candidate running for local office because the networks don’t reach below the national level. The competition there is with local television and local newspapers, which are shrinking rapidly.

Read it again — the next stage of the Internet revolution is local. Because local media are weak, and we can route around them more easily.

The Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University has just released a new report titled “Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign. Among the interesting-but-perhaps-not-surprising findings:

* Online Political Citizens are not isolated cyber-geeks, as the media has portrayed them. On the contrary, OPCs are nearly seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues. OPCs are disproportionately “Influentials,” the Americans who “tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation,” according to Ed Keller and Jon Berry, authors of the book, The Influentials. Normally, 10% of Americans qualify as Influentials. Our study found that 69% of Online Political Citizens are Influentials. * About 44% of Online Political Citizens have not been politically involved in the past in typical ways—they have not previously worked for a campaign, made a campaign donation or attended a campaign event. * Online Political Citizens are twice as likely as members of the general public to have a college degree; they have higher incomes, are slightly younger, and are more likely to be white, single and male. Internet users in general lean in these directions, but the difference between OPCs and average Americans is more dramatic. * Online Political Citizens are significantly more likely to donate money to candidates. At this early stage of the 2004 campaign, 46% have donated to a candidate or political party in the last two to three months, compared to 10% of the general public. * E-mail is their lifeline: 87% receive political e-mail and 66% forward political e-mail to friends and colleagues. OPCs frequent political Web logs, political discussion groups and political chat rooms much more often than the general public. * We estimate that Online Political Citizens comprise about 7% of the population.

Kos is floating an interesting idea: get volunteers to create Flash ads for congressional races, then raise money to place the ads online — in local newspaper websites, Yahoo/Hotmail ads, etc.

Being a big fan of MoveOn’s Bush in 30 Seconds effort, I want to try something similar, if less ambitious. I am considering soliciting Flash and video ads targeting incumbent House Republicans, and raising money to advertise those ads online within the targeted districts — a much less expensive task than the millions MoveOn is spending advertising on TV. In other words, small donations would go a long way toward getting these ads some exposure. Any thoughts? Too ambitious? Stupid?

This is a smart idea that should be explored further. (And yes, you can geo-target online advertising.) Also, folks looking to do grassroots political advertising buys shouldn’t forget that you can purchase TV ads on local cable systems quite inexpensively.

It’s cool to see innovative ideas like this emerging out of places like DailyKos.

As I’ve commented on before, Howard Dean’s Internet strategy could best be described as “try everything and throw more resources at anything that looks like it’s working.” Today, they launched yet another new trick: Internet talk radio.

Check out http://radio.deanforamerica.com.

Our internet talk radio station, WDFA is going live with Radio for America at 4 PM ET. AOL instant message to us: ‘WDFATalk’ — we’ll ask you what your name is, your phone number, where you are from and what your question is, and we’ll call you back and put you on the air.

Cool. I wonder if it will work.