Democracy Spread at the Point of a... Blog?

While I certainly can't claim to be anything other than a bit player in the blogosphere, it is certainly good to see that all of our efforts, combined, and especially those of the big bloggers whom the rest of us orbit is having a national impact. The 2004 Presidential race was probably too early in the evolution of the "big blog" for there to be a truly national effect, but it seems that this off-year election was perfectly timed to be the first.

What better subject for bloggers and their web of contacts and readers than voting problems?

Here's the NYT on the subject this morning:

Blogs of all political stripes spent most of yesterday detailing reports of voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages, effectively becoming an online national clearinghouse of the polling problems that still face the election system.

And in a new twist this year, many bloggers buttressed their accounts of electoral shenanigans with links to videos posted on the video Web site YouTube.

And a final feel-good report on the bloggers themselves should make us all feel a little bit better about ourselves, while once again showing the shallowness of the MSM:

Constantine Stavropoulos, the owner of the cafe, said he had closed its doors for the “blog party,” which the network [CNN] periodically broadcast and streamed online. He said he expected the bloggers — an attractive bunch, he said — to linger long after the votes were in.

“Bloggers look a lot better than I thought they would,” Mr. Stavropoulos said.