Jenn Satterwhite

My very good friends and founders of one of my favorite online communities, TheMotherhood.com, has come up with a brilliant and fun way to capture this historic election both in a community forum as well as on your own blog.  Let’s face it, my friends, unless you live under a rock, you know that this election is history in the making.  No matter what candidate you are voting for, it will be an historic moment in our country.  Tomorrow we will wake up with either our first African American president or our first female vice president.

My friends over at The Motherhood — founders Emily McKhann and Cooper Munroe– have created an easy cellphone based application that members use to communicate at once with their circles of friends – and they’ve adapted it for CALL IN THE VOTE.

As Motherhood co-founder Emily McKhann told the BBC:

“We are encouraging women to call in and tell us about their voting experience – if they took their children, what it was like and of course where they are.

Mothers are busy people, so an online community is a simple way to encourage them to get involved without having to do anything that is too complicated to set up.”

Why would you not want to capture that moment– the things you were thinking, feeling and doing on this day?  Share it with your kids.  For that matter, take your kids and let them share it.  Voted early?  Then share whether or not you feel left out over the hoopla over today.

I will be phoning it in.  Will you?

Here’s how it works – very simple, easy and fun:

1) Join TheMotherhood.com (if you’re not already in there) and be sure to put your cell phone number in when prompted during sign-up.

2) Join the Moms CALL IN the Vote circle and make it your Mobile Circle.

3) Go to your polling place to vote.

4) Pick up your cell phone and call 412-282-1182 (tip: add that number to your phone’s contacts ahead of time.)

5) Give us a live, on the ground report. Tell us about voting, how you feel, what the experience is like and any other election day coverage! What did the kids think?  Find your inner Couric and maybe even interview some others who are voting for more great coverage of the day. The recordings will show up immediately on TheMotherhood.com in
the Moms CALL IN the Vote circle..

6) You don’t need to have a blog or website to take part in this – but if you do, you can take the embed code from TheMotherhood.com (it will appear directly underneath your recording) and embed your voice — and other recordings you hear there too if you like — on your own site.

7) Listen to (and save for posterity) grassroots, citizen mom/dad coverage at its finest on this most historic day.

Let me know if you do this and I will do a huge follow up post sharing your thoughts and link back to your blog.

Call in the vote, people!  OH, and join the group on Facebook!  You know you want to be on Facebook.  Join and I will share with you my newest Facebook OMG story!  Just go join the Call in the vote group on Facebook.

THEN GO VOTE!  (And call us!)

Here is an example of my morning call in: