ElectionLand FAQ for SOJC Faculty and Students
What is ElectionLand?
ElectionLand is “a project that will cover access to the ballot and problems that prevent people from exercising their right to vote during the 2016 election.”
Why this matters
These issues are particularly pertinent in 2016, given how hotly contested this race is.
The Republican Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has frequently implied that there may be issues of voter fraud, whilst some communities are openly concerned about the potential for intimation on polling day.
As the Washington Post reported last month:
“Nearly half of Americans say that voter fraud occurs at least somewhat often according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a viewpoint at odds with studies showing it rarely occurs in U.S. elections.
The poll also finds 63 percent of voters are confident that votes in this year’s presidential election will be counted accurately, down from about 7 in 10 in 2004.”
Who is involved?
The initiative is led by a coalition of newsrooms, J-Schools and technology companies, including: ProPublica, Google News Lab, The First Draft Coalition, The WNYC Data News Team, Univision, Gannett and the USA TODAY network all of whom will be working with a live newsroom on Election Day hosted by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in midtown Manhattan.
The University of Oregon is one of 13 J-Schools participating in the program, alongside the University of Alabama, Arizona State University, Columbia University, CUNY, University of Florida, University of Georgia, Louisiana State University, University of Memphis, University of Missouri, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ohio University and Texas State University.
How are J-Schools supporting this effort?
On November 8th each J-School will run their own special election newsroom. Participating students will be given special access to industry tools like Slack, Facebook Signal, Google Trends and Dataminr to monitor key words, locations and influencers.
Through this, we will find, explore, verify and highlight potential issues such as: long lines, broken machines, possible intimidation at polling stations and accusations of voter fraud.
These tips will be fed into the ElectionLand newsroom at CUNY, where experienced Editors and will determine if these leads merit further exploration and who is best placed to pursue them.
Specific SOJC responsibilities
Each J-School will monitor a number of states. The SOJC will cover Election Day activity in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii.
We’ll be doing this from a special Election Day newsroom in Allen Hall Room 314.
Alongside escalating potential issues of concern, we’ll also use the day to tell the wider story of what’s happening on Election Day on the west coast, exploring reaction and discussions on social and traditional media.
We’ll do this through a dedicated website which will feature the best and most interesting content that we find throughout the time, alongside additional commentary and analysis provided by SOJC classes and newsroom participants.
Sounds great, how do I get involved?
There are two ways to do this:
1) Students can volunteer to be part of the SOJC’s special ElectionLand newsroom:
We need a minimum of 12 students to man the newsroom at any one time throughout the day.
Faculty are also welcome to volunteer and participate.
The newsroom will be staffed from 8am to 10pm PST. Realistically, this means we’ll ask you to a 7-hour shift, or 2 x 3.5 hour shifts, on the day. I’ll provide some snacks!
There’s opportunities for c.25 students to participate in this one-off project.
Alongside manning your shifts on the day, each student will also need to attend a 90–120 min training session (date to be confirmed) to get hands-on with the key tools we’ll be using.
2) Undertake valuable background research and preparation in classes
A number of classes are exploring ways to support the initiative. Efforts might include:
· Developing Twitter lists of key influencers — such as political leaders, journalists and others — in CA, OR, WA and HI. This can be done at a county level (I have the data) as well as state level. These lists will be used by the SOJC Newsroom as part of their monitoring efforts on Election Day.
· Providing historic and topical analysis about the location of registered voters, how these states have voted in the past, key issues emerging in this campaign, how these issues have been covered in campaign ads and messaging, as well as the media. These findings can be used alongside real-time analysis/findings, published on the day.
· Monitoring reaction on local, national and international media: How is the Election being covered on the day by the media? What are the key messages being discussed? Are local media outlets finding — and reporting — on issues that the ElectionLand newsroom needs to examine further? Again this wider analysis can also be used as part of the Live Blog we will be running on the day.
· Monitoring events, rallies and other regional reaction: Our live blog will tell the story of Election Day on the West Coast. We’ll primarily do this by curating interesting material and insights that we’ve found online, but — if possible — classes can also engage in original reporting that adds additional flavor and color. Reaction can be in the form of embedded social media content, short blog posts, interviews (video/audio) and images. We’ll gladly share the best of this on our Election Day site (likely a Tumblr).
Other suggestions and ideas are very welcome!
This is so exciting!
I think so! Students will get the chance to work on the day — or in advance in class — on one of the mostly hotly contested elections of recent years.
Their research, analysis and reporting, will feed into possibly the only live blog covering the wider election experience of the west coast. This is a great asset and project for the SOJC to create and own.
Newsroom volunteers will be part of a national newsgathering operation, that is pioneering an innovative way to crowdsource election issues. If it goes well, we hope this model will be used for other projects too.
What to know more?
I held an informal Q&A on the project in Allen Hall 307 on Thursday 6th October from 6pm-7pm. I’m also happy to visit classes and say more!
Thank you for your help and interest in this exciting initiative. It can’t be done without you.
For more info contact Damian Radcliffe. Email: damianr@uoregon.edu / Allen 221.
