Election Day unfolds on social media

(FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Do you remember election night before social media? Of course you do, but there's no denying Facebook and Twitter have become a major part of the political process. Tuesday night, the tweets and posts went into overdrive.

People have been using social media to hear directly from the candidates better form their opinions – even get up to the minute reports on how crowded your polling place is to decide when you should head out to avoid lines and keep an eye on whether everything is running properly.

Twitter recorded the election in real-time like never before. The 2012 election was mentioned more than 20 million times Tuesday night.

For those of you who follow the President Barack Obama on Twitter, you didn't have to wait for his speech to see him declare victory directly. President Obama tweeted four more years and a picture of him embracing First Lady Michelle Obama.
    
In just two hours, it was re-tweeted more than 400,000 times, making it the most popular tweet since the social media site was created.
    
The Obama campaign was particularly active, urging voters to stay in line to vote and calling out to residents in individual states. The Romney campaign was less active, but urged voters to cast a ballot for the former governor.
    
A lot of celebrities are using Twitter as their soapboxes – potentially increasing their influence. And how about all the Facebook political posts everyone's making? A lot of pictures of ballots are being posted there and on Instagram.

In many states, it is illegal to record anything inside polling places, but that didn't stop hundreds of thousands of pictures being posted.

But one guy even recorded a voting machine apparently malfunctioning in Pennsylvania and it went viral on YouTube. The Department of State in Pennsylvania later confirmed a similar machine to the one shown was broken.
 

Cox Media Group