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How to follow the 2016 election results online

How to follow the 2016 election results online

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Polling Machines Are Prepared For Tuesday's Presidential Election
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The end is nigh for the 2016 presidential election. We have but one hurdle left: the outcome.

If, like us, you plan to spend your election night in a dark living room hunched over your laptop, we’d like to make the experience a little easier. Here’s how to follow along with the election results at home. We’d recommend pairing your sense of dread with a fine wine, or if you aren’t of a legal drinking age, we suppose La Croix will have to suffice.

The options:

Google

Google plans to integrate results — which includes the latest polls, an electoral vote tracker, and more — into its search engine as polls close. Those times vary depending on the state. In addition to the presidential results, the site will also include results on the congressional, gubernatorial, senatorial, and state-level referenda and ballot propositions.

Twitter

BuzzFeed News will be streaming live on Twitter, starting at 6PM ET on Election Day. Just below the feed, you can also track what people are tweeting about the election in real time. If that sounds like your idea of hell on Earth, you can always watch your own feed for all your friends’ jokes, hot takes, and meltdowns.

YouTube

YouTube will live stream election coverage from outlets Bloomberg, Complex News, NBCMTV, PBSTelemundo, and The Young Turks. Streaming kicks off at 7PM ET on Tuesday.

Facebook

Aside from YouTube, several news outlets will be live-streaming election coverage on Facebook. Take your pick from pages such as ABC News, CNNDaily Caller, The New York TimesNowThis, PBS NewsHour, Univision, The Verge’s sister site Vox, AJ+, and The Washington Post.

Politico

Politico has a complete visual breakdown of results by state. The site also keeps an easy-to-use bar tracking electoral votes for a no muss, no fuss approach.

VoteCastr

VoteCastr promises “minute-by-minute projected outcomes,” and therefore might be the most anxiety-inducing option on this list. The site is partnered with Slate and Vice News; it will have data-collection teams “across the battleground states” streaming data. This info will then be checked against proprietary precinct, county, and statewide database models, beginning when polls open in Florida and ending with the final poll closing in Nevada.

For more on how this terrifying process works, I recommend this article from The New York Times, which is happy to remind you that “for readers unaccustomed to live Election Day forecasting, the VoteCastr effort could be a horror story as well.”


Watch: Want to rig the election? Good luck.