| | Election observers: Facebook, text messages aim to suppress youth turnout
 Traditional misinformation campaigns aimed at suppressing Election Day turnout have gone high tech, with some voters reporting misleading text message and Facebook updates listing the wrong day to vote.
The Election Protection Coalition says its representatives have fielded complaints from voters who were informed that Election Day had been moved to Wednesday. It's unclear precisely how many messages were sent, or who was behind the effort, but the medium suggests an effort to keep young voters away from the polls.
Some of the text messages are deliberately aimed at Democratic voters, saying that Obama supporters should cast ballots the day after Election Day, said Heather Smith, who's been coordinating outreach efforts for Rock the Vote.
Rock the Vote has fielded complaints of inaccurate txt messages sent to Florida State Students and messages listing the wrong day to vote posted to several Facebook groups. Smith said the high-tech efforts join more traditional means, such as fliers distributed in neighborhoods around Drexel University in Philadelphia warning that unpaid parking tickets could disqualify someone from voting.
Voters in a closely contested Virginia congressional district also received a forged flier last week that inaccurately said Democrats should vote on Wednesday.
Jonah Goldman, who directs the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's National Campaign for Fair Elections, said observers noticed a similar pattern among many different means of suppression.
"We don't have any evidence that there's any coordination," he said, although "the messages are identical throughout the country, the means are not identical."
Rock the Vote's Smith also said Rock the Vote was concerned that a polling place to serve students at Virginia Tech was six miles from the university, even though the precinct including the university was large enough to require two polling locations.
She wouldn't speculate whether the distance was part of an organized effort, but she did observe, "It sure feels like they're trying to keep students away from voting in this very tight election."
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