Are you ready?
We’re less than 24 hours until Election Day and finding out who will become America’s 45th president: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
Tuesday will arguably be the biggest news day of 2016, and technology will provide Americans with a bevy of ways to track results and commentary, whether it’s the presidential race or measures on state ballots. You can follow GeekWire’s coverage here; there are a number of other resources you should know about, too:
- Real-time voting results. Recode describes how a company called Votecastr will use pre-election polling and turnout data to provide real-time voting updates to Slate and Vice News for seven battleground states. Traditional media outlets typically don’t release data until polls start closing on the East Coast Tuesday evening. Votecastr is using a controversial methodology, journalistically speaking, so it will be interesting to see how accurate the numbers are, and the resulting impact — particularly for exit polling. The real-time information “might make you want to throw up,” noted The New York Times.
- Real-time predictions. Nate Silver and his colleagues at FiveThirtyEight will be a good resource to track forecasts throughout Tuesday. Other quality sites, which use non-traditional methods to weigh the chances of victory for the presidential candidates, include PredictWise, Iowa Electronic Markets, and Microsoft Bing.
- Google. The search giant will incorporate results directly in its search engine as soon as the polls close.
- Twitter will certainly be on fire. There were 31 million tweets sent out on Election Day 2012, with a peak of 327,452 tweets per minute. Expect higher numbers and more engagement this year on the social media platform, which has been front-and-center during this election season as it could be acquired soon. It will be interesting to see what Clinton and Trump tweet from their personal accounts. Some good accounts to follow: @PewResearch, @Electionland, @SopanDeb, @TheRickWilson. Here are plenty of others.
- But, be wary of what you read on social media, particularly Facebook. There are plenty of fake or overblown stories filling Facebook news feeds. It could get worse on Election Day. Since most people now get news from their Facebook streams, it gives an enormous amount of responsibility to the company — Vox reporter Timothy Lee wrote yesterday that the site is “harming our democracy.”
- New York Times. The Times is lifting its paywall, which limits non-subscribers to 10 free articles per month, starting today until Nov. 9. It will also provide live-streaming coverage on its Facebook page.
- Politico has a solid visual breakdown of the results on a state-by-state basis.
- Live streaming coverage: If you aren’t in front of a TV, there are plenty of ways to follow live commentary and reaction throughout Election Day. NBC News, PBS, MTV News, Bloomberg, and others will stream coverage on YouTube; ABC News will stream on Facebook; BuzzFeed is streaming live coverage on Twitter; CNN will stream its coverage online without the need for authentication, as is CBS; Wired will host a live blog and livestream; and Stephen Colbert is streaming a special election show on Showtime. Variety notes that plenty of other outlets will host live streams on Facebook.
Editor’s note: GeekWire reporter Alan Boyle contributed to this post.
