Election Results on Your Phone

In the United States this election season, you’ll be able to sign up to get the results on your cell phone. The Associated Press, using technology by Crisp Wireless, will make its elections results available through mobile browsers as they report them. The AP will provide this service to news outlets that can then in turn offer it to their own audiences, much like the way the AP distributes its printed news stories.

The results that will be available include state results for all national and governor races and the results of the “Top Races” that are determined by the news outlet. Users will also be able to bookmark the races they are most interested in to more easily view the results, and the service will also show national trends and the latest political news stories reported by the AP.

This is the first national effort by a news agency to provide election results to mobile phones and it will be interesting to see how it is received. There’s no doubt that all lessons learned will be put to use for far more mobile outreach in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. You can test out the service at AP Mobile Elections and read more about it in this press release.