We're on the road this week in Iowa, documenting the run-up to the Iowa Caucuses on February 1 and how technology and innovation are changing longstanding traditions in American politics.

A vestige of 20th century political campaigning—the yard sign—is going the way of the fax machine, and Edward Kimmel knows who to blame: the Internet.

Kimmel is a bankruptcy attorney and part-time photographer who's been shooting political events and memorabilia for years. Back in 2008, he traveled to 14 states, following President Obama on the campaign trail.

But when he got to Iowa this week, he noticed something had changed. The political signs and bumper stickers that used to clutter his camera rolls are virtually non-existent. In fact, since arriving on Tuesday, Kimmel says, he's only spotted five bumper stickers total. That's because technology has enabled candidates to forgo blanket campaigning for the fabled targeted campaign.

'Years ago, these yards would have been full of signs.'

"Since the first Obama campaign, everybody who's gone to campaign manager school since then has been told it's all about targeted canvassing and targeted phone banking," Kimmel says, his two homemade Hillary Clinton signs flapping in the the bitter cold wind outside a Clinton campaign rally at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa today.

"If I go to the campaign and ask them where I should go with my signs, they say, 'That's really hard to say. Why don't you grab a phone and get on the phone bank with us?'"

But he's not the only one who's noticed the change. "The technology is getting rid of them," said another Clinton supporter, who asked to be identified only as Fred, as he waited in line for the rally. "If you look around there are very few campaign signs. Years ago, these yards would have been full of signs."

Kimmel, for one, is worried about the impact this could have on voter turnout. After all, while targeting may be effective, it requires having a central database of people who ought to be targeted to begin with. That means those people have either signed up with a campaign on their own, voted in the past, or taken some kind of political action to get them on a list. Then, campaign's algorithms go to town determining who's most persuadable on that list, and positively bombard them with ads, emails, phone calls, and door knocks.

"I think it's not sustainable," Kimmel says. "I understand that the targeted canvassing and targeted phone banking is the deal, but I think that we ought to be asking everybody to vote and shine our light. So I do."