Text messaging election poll kicks off tomorrow

That text messaging election poll we wrote about a week or so ago is due to kick off tomorrow. Why are we telling you again? Because we've had the press relations woman from Boltblue on the phone assuring us that you don't have to register with the company to vote.

This was our major criticism of the poll when we first read about it - making people register was likely to greatly reduce those who would bother and so undermine the poll, making it all a waste of time (but giving Boltblue some saleable information).

But no! It may be that when we tried it and were asked to register with the company to go any further that we had become confused. Or perhaps Boltblue never intended to ask you to register and we'd jumped the gun. Perhaps we even persuaded the company not to ask for registration.

Who knows and who cares? We think this is an interesting experiment and may even kick seasoned pollsters like Mori, Gallup et al off the top spot for a day. The access numbers vary according to your mobile operator, and you'll need to insert "Con", "Lab" or "Lib" in your message.

You have to be UK-based and you only get one vote (they'll ignore any subsequent votes). These are the numbers:

• BT Cellnet 07719 569 182
• One2One 07947 372 122
• Orange 07866 235 860
• Virgin 07947 372 122
• Vodafone 07884 347 923

So there you go. Click here for more info (can't do direct link - all Java-scripted up).

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