Across the internet today, blogs, websites and social media networks are buzzing with updates regarding the election and poll activity. From predictions to where to watch the results tonight to the impact on both political parties, hundreds of hashtags, thousands of blogs, and millions of people have clicked Facebook’s button that instantly tells all of your friends that you voted. Not only are people clicking Facebook’s button to engage and share that they’ve voted, there are lots of status updates and comments about the election.
Probably no surprise, but Facebook is known for collecting user data and today is no exception. Facebook launched their “I’m A Voter” button and it’s the first thing you see when you log in to your Facebook account today, and shows who of your friends voted and how many other people have used it. The tally was up to 4,809,415 people who had sharing on Facebook that they had voted today. If you’d like to share that you’ve voted, log in and click I’m A Voter and become part of the community of voters on Facebook.
Every person that clicked their button today has been added to the pool of data. According to Facebook’s stats, two things are popular today. Getting out to vote and telling everyone on Facebook about it!
Facebook is collecting the data and aggregated that data into a map to showcase trends in voting across the United States. The map contains shaded areas to show the total amount of people who have voted in certain areas of the country and real time data is displayed in bursts to identify areas where sharing activity is currently happening.
Based on the latest stats, it looks like 208,000 are sharing right now per hour and the peak so far today was around 9 am this morning when approximately 478,000 were sharing per hour. 
Facebook’s stats show when people were sharing that they voted, where people in the country are voting, and what the demographics were for voters broken out by age groups and male versus female. Currently, women have shared that they are voting more on Facebook than men with not quite 10% in any age group for men, while nearly 20% of women in the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups have shared that they are voting.
For even more voting and polling information, visit the Get to the Polls website 2014.votinginfoproject.org and enter your street address for polling locations near you and sample ballots to use. It will pinpoint locations based on your current location or your full registered voting address.
If you’ve done your civic duty and cast your vote today, the next step in the process is to see if your candidates won. If you’d like to check out the results online, there is a plethora of resources available from TV networks to newspapers to online sources.
The first polls start to close at 6 pm ET and below is a map compiled by Daily Kos providing hour by hour closing times across all states.
For national coverage here is list we’ve compiled:
George Stephanopoulos will anchor the coverage by ABC News and the updates will be available live on YouTube through their ABC News: Your Voice, Your Vote, ABCNews.com, the ABC News mobile apps and Apple TV starting at 7 pm ET through 2 am ET.
Bloomberg Politics will also air all-night exclusive election coverage with numerous studio guests and commentators and correspondents from around the country on YouTube starting at 5 pm ET.
CBSNews.com will begin its coverage with the CBS Evening News and will live stream the coverage and follow with updates through the evening on its website. The CBSNews.com website has segmented various types of races including Senate races, Houses races, Gubernatorial races, Ballot initiatives and more.
CNN is only streaming its live TV coverage to authenticated pay TV subscribers, but is starting a live stream of Hambycast at 8 pm ET on CNNPolitics.com.
Comedy Central will feature its election coverage and special live editions of the Daily Show with John Stewart and the Colbert Report on YouTube starting at 9:45 pm ET.
C-SPAN will feature all coverage on its website starting at 8 pm ET and will offer six hours of streaming.
Fox News will showcase its unique election coverage through an online show called The Strategy Room on its website and on Fox News mobile apps starting at 9 pm and wrapping up around 11 pm ET. Fox News will also offer bilingual election coverage on YouTube starting at 9 pm ET.
NBC will live stream its election coverage anchored by Brian Williams with an East Coast and West Coast edition on its website as well as online coverage when regular programming resumes on TV.
PBS NewsHour will offer coverage co-anchored by Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill on YouTube starting at 6 pm ET.
USA Today is live streaming its election coverage on YouTube as well.
The Wall Street Journal is offering an election edition of its Capital Journal on YouTube beginning at 8:30 ET.
If you just want the numbers without any live coverage, check out Politico’s election results site for a complete break down of all of the results.
For local election results, here a couple of great resources:
The North Carolina State Board of Elections Unofficial General Election Results Statewide website allows you to look at all contests, and all counties and look at the ballot counts, the party affiliations and percentage.
Star News Online is offering 2014 Election coverage on the Star News Online website for local stories and results as well as a useful Voter Guide.
WWAY 3 is updating their website with coverage and providing livestream coverage starting at 10:55 pm and ABC livestream digital coverage from 7 pm to 2 am.
Happy voting!
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