Facebook recently released an Elections section giving political candidates an opportunity to present themselves to the college audience in their own way with Facebook profiles.
Hmm... let's see... 85% penetration among 4 year colleges+candidate profiles=best opportunity to increase voter turnout ever!
Let's not underestimate what an impact this could be... if it wasn't for how incredibly difficult it is to get election information.
In an ideal world, since they already know my address, it should be one click to find out who my current reps are, who's running against them, and where they stand. I mentioned that to them and they said that would be great if they could find a "find your district" site...
...At first I was kind of annoyed, like they weren't trying... but, actuallly... it is really hard.
Way too hard actually.
I found one here, but you need to know your 9-digit zip, which requires going offsite to the US Postal Service and typing in my address. You can't even find this district info on the US Gov't's own website. Its ridiculous.
Google the word "vote" and see if you learn anything useful. Its doubtful. Until we leverage the web to make staying informed about elections less than a second job, we're going to have a very uninformed voter base.