An SMS from Silvio B.
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Today, an SMS sent and firmed by the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic reminded all the Italian mobile phone users that tomorrow is election day: "Elezioni 2004, si vota sabato 12 dalle 15 alle 22 e domenica 13 dalle 7 alle 22. Necessari documento e tessera elettorale". "Elections 2004, vote on Saturday 12 from 15 to 22 and on Sunday, from 7 to 22. ID and voting card are required" The President of the Council, Silvio Berlusconi says the initiatives aims solely at reducing absenteeism: "We know that over 4 million Italians go away during the week-end: I address this invitation to them so that they come back and vote." Opponents of Berlusconi believe that this initiative is only a (not so) clever form of political campaign. And some Italians feel that their privacy has been violated (besides some of them have received the message in the middle of the night!)
From Tel&Co. |
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In what it claims was simply an effort to boost turnout, the Italian government has sent millions of cell phone users text messages on voting procedures for this weekend's European and local elections. Read More
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The italian government used the same system to inform about the ongoing electric power national black-out. At that time this thing passed by without any notice. But as with anything under the elections it becomes a good excuse for a political discussion.
Informing you of your rights once every 2-3 years can be a violation to your privacy?
The only thing that I do not see as good is that the government had to pay for something of zero cost to the operators.
I would like to have this at every election and this kind of messages should be free for a very limited institutional use.
SMS is the most efficient way of reaching the population with this kind of information so it is a step forward in the right direction.
Take a look:
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/001773.htm
the (cellphone) population includes a few million foreigners with no voting rights. How about these ?