Political Ad Check: A WAFF 48 Special Report | News

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF)- Election Day is only a week away and President Obama, Mitt Romney, and PACs are dominating the airwaves. But how do you really know when a politician or a political ad is telling you the truth? New technology is trying to answer that question.

A quick search of the Google Play market or Apple's App store and your smartphone is inundated with several apps that can help. Ad Hawk is free download from The Sunlight Foundation. It uses sound recognition to quickly identify the source of political ads you see and listen to.

But there's another app that takes the truth one step farther. The Super Pac App is also free. Not only does it identify the source by sound recognition, it also gives you detailed background information on the political advertisement. It lets users know a lot more than the few sentences the 30 second spots tell you.

"It is a significant change to have instantaneous information available to voters," said WAFF 48 political analyst Dr. Waymon Burke.

 He doesn't believe these new political apps will win or lose an election, but he does expect one key demographic to embrace them.

"Young people, in greater numbers, seem to be into this technology as opposed to older voters," said Dr. Burke. "How it impacts younger voters may be the most important question." 

That question will be answered in a few days.

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