A million voters isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion voters.
And Facebook could make it happen.
Four years ago, we all began talking about implications of social media on the election. Books have been written about how Obama tapped into social media to win the presidency, and how for this election, he's joined Pinterest and opened a "technology field office" in San Francisco.
But this all misses the point. In 2012, we face a digital divide – not in education, but in democracy. Come November, millions of people will line up, in sun and wind and rain, missing work, all to push the equivalent of a punch card. Then those same millions will log on to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks and tell the world who they voted for. Why not cut out the middleman?
I'm not actually suggesting that we replace our election system - yet - with one administered online. The notion of a blue "Login with Facebook" button atop a ballot to fill the highest office of the Republic should scare you.
But what about a straw poll? Because, when you think about it, a "Like" and a vote are the same thing.
Facebook now counts 900 million members worldwide. By November, it could reach one billion. Facebook knows which of its users reside in the United States. Why not ask them who they will choose to be President?
Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg decided tomorrow that on Oct. 15, a month before the election, Facebook would hold its first U.S. Election Straw Poll. That news would spread around the globe in hours, if not minutes. One day. Millions of "votes" a month before the actual election. One post on the Facebook blog would shake U.S. democracy to its roots.
The implications? Mind-blowing. Politicians, reporters, analysts, and pundits would be absolutely slavering to gorge themselves on the feast of data that Facebook could provide. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Partiers, women, men, teens, the elderly, blacks, whites, Latinos, San Francisco taxi drivers, Russian Jews, plumbers from Des Moines and thirty-something lesbians who love Gossip Girl, Hole, and Thai food, let alone members of the AARP or the alumni of UCLA. If Facebook or its user base decided to anonymously volunteer its stored social graph, there would be almost no need for predictive analysis. You could slice the data any way you wanted, using actual responses.
Oh, and well, why stop there? Add a second, worldwide poll. Let our election turn into a worldwide referendum. And then repeat the process, again, for every election in other countries around the world.
Predicting election outcomes, actually administering them, and then analyzing the results are the three big data problems of 2012. We talk about the Twitter firehose, sentiment analysis, trying to read the tea leaves of millions of voters. Why not simply ask them?
In 2010, Facebook took a half-hearted swing at the problem, examining the election after the fact. In doing so, the company put itself behind the curve.
So, here we sit, seven months before the election. In the Bay Area, spring is here: fine balmy weather, hiking weather, more than appropriate for Zuckerberg's famous hilltop strolls. Maybe he and vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer will have a chat. Maybe they'll change the world.
For more from Mark, follow him on Twitter @MarkHachman.
