Text Message Voting in our Future?

Cell phones are becoming increasingly important in voting around the world. While voting by cell phone might seem far fetched in the US today, 11% of residents of small villages in Switzerland used text messaging to vote in an election last month. Prior to the election, voters were mailed a PIN code they included in their text message to validate their votes.

In San Francisco, Mobile Voter, a new text messaging application, allows voters to request voter registration forms by conventional snail mail. During this November election, teams of roving volunteers walked the streets of downtown San Francisco encouraging citizens to register to vote by text messaging via their cell phones.