I believe that the protection of the integrity of elections, always a matter of concern, is quickly becoming an issue of paramount importance in our democracy. With the increasing usage of electronic voting methods across America, it is apparent that many of the most pertinent issues regarding these apparatus have not been sufficiently studied. Also, as accusations of unjust polling practices become more widespread, many Americans are steadily losing faith in the modern electoral process. This is a matter that must not be ignored, lest we allow the probity of American democracy to be further eroded.

Speaking as a former Regional Field Director for Rock the Vote and a current consultant for Veeker, let’s serve notice to the powers-that-be that on this Election Day and every election in the future, Americans will protect the integrity of our democratic process. We will not sit idly by while reports of voter intimidation and faulty polling machines are talked about but not documented or resolved. Spread the word that anyone with a video enabled cell phone can help protect American democracy by recording short videos of polling place problems and sending them to vote@veeker.com thus publishing them immediately on http://www.veekthevote.com. Activists can also use this technology to talk to voters outside of polling places and document the most pressing motivations for voting.

But you’re wrong about the “tainting” part. I mean your sarcasm–which is a beautiful thing–is in that instance misplaced. NewAssignment.Net is a pro-am project. Pre-tainted. If it ever did something along the lines Evslin suggested, pros would be part of it from the beginning.

And besides, I’m a professional, so my involvement would taint the purity of the enterprise: I have an interest in the outcome.

So I’ll just stand on the sidelines and throw stones, that’s more my style.

We’ve already seen network neutrality discrimination claims made by Craig Newmark that turned out to be caused by the odd configuration of his equipment, discrimination claims that turned out to be temporary service outages, and in Canada discrimination claims that turned out to me service offerings. When the citizen engineer/jour-analyst starts looking at packet delay data, no doubt every traffic-related variation in delivery times will be linked to the latest Evangelical gay sex scandal, Saddam’s WMD program, Ed Whitacres sexual preferences, and the price of soybean futures.

The trouble with citizen efforts at skilled professions isn’t a dearth of data, it’s the inability to interpret the data according to rational standards.

This is going to be funny to watch.

Jour-analism is just too perfect (see Maureen Dowd committing it in Rolling Stone this week, for instance).