The election is dominating Internet search traffic today. Google reports nearly 90 percent of its hottest search terms are now election-related. Are you finding the information you need?
Many of the searches are results-oriented — people looking for exit poll data, voting results, or some idea of who’s winning the election. That information won’t officially become available until all polls have closed in any given state. The first polls shut their doors at 7 p.m. ET. Here’s a look at when each state wraps up, courtesy of CNN :
Once those polls do close, you can find up-to-the-minute results on CNN’s online or mobile tracking service, via MSNBC’s social network and blog-ready results widget (see below), or on one of several live dashboards like the easy-to-use one over at iDashboards . The New York Times will also send you SMS alerts as the results come in, if you’d like. Just text NEWSALERTS to 698698 to sign up.
Other Google searchers are looking for polling locations and hours , which can be easily located with these services . Some folks are just trying to find lists of free stuff for voting — whether it’s Starbucks, donuts, or music downloads — and rest assured, there’s plenty to go around. We’ve compiled some of the best offers here .
Of course, mixed in with all the Election Day madness is one oddball search item that caught our eye. The 85th hottest search term on Google this afternoon: “sit or squat.” We opted not to research the subject any further.
