All a Twitter over Darwen elections (From Lancashire Telegraph)

All a Twitter over Darwen elections

6:40pm Wednesday 3rd June 2009

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Exclusive By Catherine Pye »

DARWEN Town Council’s election results will be available as they are announ-ced, thanks to the latest technology.

Blackburn with Darwen Council will broadcast the results via the social networking site Twitter.

And the Lancashire Telegraph’s website will feature a live election day blog tomorrow with every result as it happens.

Subscribers to the Telegraph text alert service will also receive a message telling them the make-up of the new town council.

Blackburn with Darwen Coun-cil chief Graham Burgess said the council wanted to use new methods such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook “to engage with wider audiences”.

He added: “These new channels present an excellent opportunity to reach new audiences and signpost them towards the main council website.

“These channels are being explored in the context of complementing existing chan-nels, not replacing them.”

Voters in the wards of Earcroft, Marsh House, Sudell, Sunny-hurst and Whitehall go to the polls today to elect 13 town councillors.

Once in power, the new councillors must draw up plans for how the town council will work and what it will do.

Town and parish councils have a wide range of potential powers ranging from repairing and maintaining public footpaths and bridleways, to lighting roads, pro-viding litter bins, bus shelters, traffic signs and public toilets.

To remind people to vote, mobile phone users walking past four hotspots in the borough will be targeted by a special Bluetooth video. The council will send the video, depicting a range of unusual and imaginative ways to make an X symbol, to anyone with a Bluetooth-enabled phone walking past town halls in Blackburn and Darwen, The Mall or near Blackburn Market.

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