Elections

Change.gov feature jump-starts health care discussion

A new feature called "Join the Discussion" was added Tuesday to President-elect Barack Obama's transition Web site, Change.gov, making the site more interactive for visitors.

The new page allows people to post to comments on a specific topic deemed a top priority by Obama. The page's first discussion focuses on health care and features a video from health care transition team members Dr. Dora Hughes and Lauren Aronson. As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,100 comments had been posted.

"A critical part of our health reform efforts is making sure every American voice … Read more

Lifestreaming in Obamaland

Barack Obama will be the most shadowed president in history, and it won't be just the Secret Service and press corps surrounding him.

Citizens and paparazzi armed with camera phones and a variety of other multimedia devices will chronicle every movement he makes in public and post it online.

Obama's visit on Friday afternoon to Manny's Cafeteria and Deli in Chicago was treated as a major event. Some footage was recorded by the Associated Press (see below), and in the background you can see employees, as well as a horde of press members, pointing their cameras at … Read more

Obama transition team names tech policy group

The transition team for President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday announced which advisers will lead the team's efforts to develop technology policy for the Obama administration.

The three team leaders of the technology, innovation, and government reform policy working group are Julius Genachowski and Blair Levin, two former Federal Communications Commission staff members, and Sonal Shah, the head of Google.org.

The purpose of the policy working group is to "develop the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama campaign for action during the Obama-Biden administration," according to the transition team. Obama has promised to put more … Read more

Minn. Senate race could hinge on scanning machine mistakes

Clarification at 2:52 p.m. PST: An earlier version of this story said the Minneapolis director of elections admitted she left 32 absentee ballots in her car. But the Minnesota Secretary of State's office says that's untrue and we've changed the language to reflect that position as we investigate further.

Fears of e-voting glitches in the November election are still not over. The outcome of the Minnesota Senate race--which could give the Democrats a firmer grasp on power in Washington--may depend on whether scanning machines made mistakes two weeks ago when tabulating ballots.

Republican Sen. Norm … Read more

Obamas get personal on '60 Minutes'

Updated at 10:10 p.m. PST with video of the interview.

In their first interview since the presidential election, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, talk with 60 Minutes about the enormity of the moment when he was first declared the winner of the presidential election.

"I am not sure it has sunk in," the president-elect says during the hour-long interview with the CBS TV news magazine.

They discuss the entire experience and how their lives have changed, as well as the challenges faced by the man who will be the 44th president of the United … Read more

Obama transition team names FCC review leaders

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team on Friday announced who will lead the transition project's review of the Federal Communications Commission, the office of the United States Trade Representative, and a number of other agencies, departments, and executive offices.

The new team members will review the agencies and offices to aid the new administration in its planning decisions. Obama's transition group first announced the formation of the teams on Wednesday.

Susan Crawford, a communications law and Internet law professor at the University of Michigan, is a leader of the FCC review team. Crawford was until recently on the … Read more

Would-be Obama aides must disclose Web posts, Facebook profiles

If you want a job in an Obama administration, be prepared to disclose every blog post or comment you've ever written.

A nine-page questionnaire requires applicants to list--and if possible, provide copies of--all "posts or comments on blogs or other Web sites" they have ever made. Also required are "aliases" or nicknames used on those sites.

Translated into English, this means that President-elect Obama wants to know far more about you than his predecessors did. That requirement would force applicants to disclose information about Facebook and MySpace pages, profiles posted on dating Web sites, and … Read more

Obama to deliver weekly address via YouTube

For the first time ever, the president's weekly address to the nation will be delivered via video as well as radio.

President-elect Barack Obama, the Washington Post reported, will begin by taping this week's Democratic address at his transition office in Chicago on Friday, and the video will be posted on Saturday to Obama's transition site, Change.gov, via YouTube. Other members of the Obama administration will post online videos as well.

On Thursday evening, Obama's transition team co-chair Valerie Jarrett posted a YouTube video, shown below, to the site explaining the lobbying restrictions for Obama'… Read more

eBay halts inauguration ticket sales

eBay has removed tickets for the upcoming presidential inauguration from its Web sites in an effort to help curb scams.

Tickets to the January 20 event have been listed on eBay and sites like StubHub, an eBay subsidiary, for tens of thousands of dollars. The home page of InauguralTickets.com reads, "Our prices reflect the difficulty in obtaining hard-to-find, quality tickets."

eBay decided to halt the ticket sales on Thursday after meeting this week with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"Any Web site or ticket broker claiming that they have … Read more