If you search “2012 Presidential Polls,” Yahoo will show you the latest national poll numbers at any given time:

If you search for “swing state polls” specifically, you can see how the swing states are trending at that moment. You can also search for state senate races and see related polls (for example: “Kentucky Senate Race 2012″).

“You’ll also be able to get details on key propositions, issues, and referenda using the Propositions Direct Display,” Yahoo explains. “Search for the state proposition number.” For example, you could search for “Colorado Amendment 64″. and see information about that.

Users can also get results for all of the races as they come in, by searching for your state’s specific races. “For instance, you can search for your state’s local U.S. House of Representatives results by searching for [New York U.S. House Results] and get results in real-time,” says Yahoo.

Currently, the Yahoo homepage is showing “The Obama Message,” “The Romney Message,” the “Election Control Room,” a Flickr Election 2012 photo gallery, and a link to polls with closing times.

Sergey Brin6 hours ago

I must confess, I am dreading today's elections.
Not because of who might win or lose.
Not because as a Californian, my vote for President will count 1/3 as much as an Alaskan (actually it won't matter at all — I'm not in a swing state).
Not because my vote for Senate will count 1/50 as much as an Alaskan.

But because no matter what the outcome, our government will still be a giant bonfire of partisanship.  It is ironic since whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people.  And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party.

So my plea to the victors — whoever they might be: please withdraw from your respective parties and govern as independents in name and in spirit.  It is probably the biggest contribution you can make to the country.

[If you agree, pass it on to your newly elected officials.] 3021    398 Powered by socialditto

Brin received a substantial amount of feedback from people on Google’s social network, with thousands of +1s, and hundreds of shares and comments.

There is also a link on the homepage itself, which takes you to Google’s Elections site.

On the results page, the first organic (non-Google) result (at least for this writer) is canivote.org, which is maintained by the National Association of Secretaries of State (described as the “nation’s oldest, nonpartisan professional association for public officials”). Its members are the chief state election officials in 39 states, but the site is actually hosted by Kansas.gov.

The second result I see is for a Louisville KY voting site from the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office. This is presumably targeted to me because I’m in Kentucky, but since I live closer to Lexington (which would still not be helpful to me since I live in a different town), the result is pretty much useless. After that it’s a polling place finder for Minnesota. Then Massachusetts, Michigan and Idaho related pages.

To make a long story short, without Google’s own tool, and possibly the first initial result, the organic results are simply not very good for the user. This makes Google’s own tool, which is the top non-paid result, the best result (out of the ones that are actually displayed). There is room for debate as to whether or not there are other choices on the web that are as good or better than Google’s tool.

Either way, this is an example of where Google can improve the user experience by simply providing its own service – a big topic fo discussion in the search world.

“Discover how your individual vote contributes to the popular vote and your state’s electoral vote in different ways–and see how votes are counted on both state and national levels,” the TED Education YouTube channel explains.

The animation was done by Marked Animation.

That’s not because he doesn’t care about voting, mind you. It’s not because he has no vested interest in who the President of the United States is. He simply doesn’t want to register to vote because of “scary stalkers”.

Here is the response he posted to Quora:

Read Quote of Jimmy Wales’s answer to Jimmy Wales: For whom will Jimmy Wales be voting in two weeks? on Quora

In a separate thread in which someone asked who he would be voting for in two weeks had he been willing to register to vote, he posted:

Read Quote of Jimmy Wales’s answer to Jimmy Wales: Whom would Jimmy Wales be voting for in two weeks had he been willing to register to vote? on Quora

There are filtering options and social data from Twitter and Facebook, as well as a feature to help users find their polling places.

Bing calls it “another reason to choose Bing over Google.”

Of course, Google has its own elections site at Google.com/elections, which includes news, relevant Google+ pages, and tons of relevant video content from YouTube, as well as trends, voter info, and various other features.

“Powered by Bing search technology and combined with the best from MSN and political partnerships including Politico, Real Clear Politics, The Cook Political Report, Huffington Post and Associated Press, bing.com/elections gives those interested in politics a new place to plug into what’s happening in Election 2012,” says Mike Nichols, Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Bing. “With coverage, polls and predictions of every race and candidate down to the state and congressional level, as well a unique take each day from Politico and its candidate tracker, Bing Elections is constantly updated so you don’t miss a thing.”

In other Bing news, Microsoft just launched Windows 8, and Bing has been showing off its new apps.

Along the side of the blimp, Romney’s face and the message “AMERICA NEEDS ROMNEY” could be seen as it traveled from Boca Raton to an airport in Pembroke Pines. According to a Miami Herald report, the pilot downed the 160-foot airship in an open area of a housing development after it became clear the craft wasn’t going to make it to its destination. The landing was successful, and no people or property were damaged.

Romney will be hoping that his presidential aspirations won’t take the same nose dive tonight, as the former Massachusetts governor and President Obama square off in the third and final presidential debate.

Just weeks away from election day, Real Clear Politics national polls show Romney with a slight edge. On a state-by-state basis, however, President Obama is leading polls in several key swing states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Winning those four states would put the president just a few electoral votes away from reelection. Romney is currently leading polls in Florida, while Virginia and Colorado are currently a toss-up.

Feel free to leave your jokes about Romney being full of hot air, or his campaign deflating, in the comments section below.

While such a revelation would seem to bolster President Obama’s reelection chances, the economies in many of these same states are still recovering slowly. For example, the unemployment rate in Florida may have fallen 1.7% from one year ago, but the rate itself is still high, currently sitting at 8.7%.

Mitt Romney’s campaign is running on the candidate’s experience in business and that he “knows what it takes” to create jobs. The Obama campaign will now have firm numbers to point to when touting the president’s record on job creation. The topic will no doubt come up tonight during the third and final presidential debate.

Whether these new and better unemployment numbers will affect the presidential election is unclear. According to Real Clear Politics, a poll aggregation website, Romney currently leads by about 2% in Florida, while Obama leads by about 2% in Ohio. Other swing states, such as Virginia and Colorado, are currently shown as dead-heats.

National polls are also showing a dead heat, though Romney has had the edge for most of the past two weeks. However, Romney is trailing in important states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The electoral votes of those three states and Ohio would put Obama just a few electoral votes from reelection, meaning a win in Iowa, Nevada, or Virginia could give Obama the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

My speculations turned out to be correct and French citizens ignored these warnings, openly tweeting election results – but with a twist. The New York Times reports that French citizens were using code words to report election results before the close of polling. Words such as tomato, flan, and other thinly-coded references that French citizens would instantly understand, stood in for the candidate’s names in tweets. Flan stood for Francois Hollande, the French Socialist Party candidate who currently leads with 28% of the vote. Incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was sometimes referred to using allusions to the temperature in Budapest.

The issue now is what the French government will do about such open, if playful, disrespect of the law. According to the New York Times, traditional French media outlets respected the ban, meaning they were silent while coverage of their country’s election was provided by Belgian and Swiss media. I suspect the tweets and announcements will be ignored this time, since the election results were not close enough to warrant a challenge from any candidate. However, this is an issue that will only grow, as social media begins to overtake traditional news outlets.

Is the French election law banning early election results a relic of the past that has no hope of being enforced, or do you think the French government will follow up in some way? Have a look at some of the tweets that went out yesterday and leave a comment below.

The issue was highlighted by the Journal du Dimanche, a weekly French newspaper published on Sundays. Though the law is old and written for larger media publishers, “sending a tweet or posting a message on a Facebook profile falls within the law,” the Journal du Dimanche quotes Mattias Guyomar, a Government Commissioner, as saying.

French law prohibits the media from publishing exit poll results until the close of voting. With 5.2 million French Twitter users and 40 million French Facebook users, more than half the population of France are, effectively, potential publishers. Persons who broadcast results could be prosecuted and face fines of up to 75,000 euros. The law is based upon the idea that knowing the early results of voting might influence voters who are late to vote.

According to the the Journal du Dimanche, the worst-case-scenario for an internet leak of exit poll results would be the cancellation of the entire election. If the final election results are close enough, the losing candidate would be “entitled to file and appeal with the Constitutional Council” to have the election results nullified.

It’s an interesting conundrum, and I will be very interested to see how both traditional media and the French government handle the inevitable leaks. Will the larger news networks report what most people in France will already know because of social media? Will French prosecutors actually prosecute Twitter or Facebook users to set an example? I find these stories of the direct clash between aging institutions and new media to be fascinating. What do you think? Leave a comment or suggestion (in English or French) below.

(picture from the official French Twitter account)