Legal Research

Social Media and Politics, and the New Coalition

By Omar Ha-Redeye

Here are the slides from a talk I gave on Dec. 1 at the Schulich School of Business in a session held for practicing marketers.

What I found most interesting from the discussion that ensued afterward was the suggestion that vote monitoring tactics observed during the U.S. Presidential election could be duplicated here, specifically for the proposed vote-swap.

The concept behind it was that all of the other parties would work together to ensure they all got as many seats as possible.  Ridings where the race was close were identified, and participants were matched with a person in a different riding where a vote for the other party was needed.

The success of this strategy was limited because participants were often skeptical that their counterpart from a different party would actually follow through.  Providing proof via cell phone photo might get us past that hurdle.

Although a new election has been averted for now, we might have an opportunity to see this in action sooner rather than later.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 07, 2008 (boomark / email).