How Technology is Changing Politics

We just completed party primary run-offs this past week.  Election day is always exciting for me. There is something special about waiting for the votes to be counted and tallies released that gets my blood pressure up!!  Elections have changed with technology. We no longer have the paper ballots nor the punch cards that caused such a fiasco in Florida with the Bush/Gore race…remember the “hanging chads?”  Now we have digital machines which has led to other problems. In the original June 12th primary Greenville County had some machines malfunction and freeze…just like your computer does at times. Which leads me think what happens if a machine dies and the results can’t be retrieved? Of course, with all of the talk of Russian interference there is the fear that someone can hack these machines?

The other part of election night that technology is changing is the projection of winners. We partnered with Politically Epic to be able to project winners in the 4th District Congressional race much faster for our 94-5 WGTK The Answer listeners…..and that we did.  Just after the polls closed(around 7:18p) Chase Michaels joined us to give his exit polling data.  Chase and his team at Politically Epic were able to poll 1356 voters throughout the 4th District with their digital app to get the following results:

                                           Politically Epic        Actual Results

William Timmons                    52.6                              54.3

Lee Bright                                  47.4                               45.7

Boy…..were they close or what?  The best news……94-5 WGTK The Answer were able to get this to listeners long before anyone else had the information!!!

Take a minute to listen to my conversation with Chase on election night as he gives us the projected results of what was actually confirmed several hours later!!