Swinging the Votes; Technology is helping predict elections--and upset them.

Byline: Eric Pape, With Holly Bailey and Liat Radcliffe

Mireia Nebot isn't your garden-variety revolutionary. The 29-year-old Barcelona resident leads a busy life as a language-school administrator and organizer of independent film festivals, and never thought of herself as a political activist. That all changed earlier this month when her cell phone rang with a text message from a friend. It was the day before Spanish elections, two days after terrorists killed 189 innocent commuters in Madrid. And Nebot, like many Spaniards, was upset. The message denounced the government's handling of the crisis and urged Nebot to pass the message on. It also began her involvement in 24 hours of truly remarkable political protest that culminated in the ousting of the heavily favored, conservative Populist Party. "I really felt involved in a democratic revolution," says Nebot. "It was incredible."

This election season, politicos from Wales to Washington are harnessing technologies as never before to target voters and shape elections. At the same time, however, technology is fueling a very different kind of voter revolution. Ready access to the Internet, instant text messaging and a whole host of cheap, populist tech tools are making grassroots movements more powerful, and elections far more unpredictable. "These technologies make it easier for regular people to get involved," says New York-based media and political consultant Rich Garella. "You send a quick message [and] suddenly you're a political activist instead of just a TV watcher. "

Nebot became just such an activist on March 13. The first SMS message she received on her cell phone read: "Denounce the disinformation. Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attacks 4 times. Pass it on." She did. Early that evening came another message telling people to gather at Genova Street, in front of PP headquarters, at 6 p.m. Nebot fingered her keypad a few times to forward the message to friends and family. Thousands of other fingers did the same. Within hours a crowd of at least 7,000 impassioned protesters filled a block of the broad boulevard. Similar rallies took place around the country. And so it went throughout the night, an apparently improvised series of protests, driven forth by anger, hope and cell phones.

There's not much politicians can do about last-minute ...