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America votes

Chiponda Chimbelu, Sella OnekoNovember 4, 2014

What does the US midterm election look like through the lense of a smartphone and 140 characters? DW has collected some of the impressions from social media as Americans go to the polls.

https://p.dw.com/p/1DgSz
USA Kongresswahlen 04.11.2014
Image: Reuters/C. Keane

The proportion of American voters using cell phones to keep up with political news and campaigns has doubled compared to the last midterm elections in 2010, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

So what kinds of topics are voters sharing and commenting on? Here's a look at some impressions from social media uploaded during election day.

Voter encouragement:

In the past month voters, candidates and various partisan and non-partisan organizations, called on US citizens to cast their vote. Google for instance provided a feature to help voters find their nearest polling station and gave indications on what issues people were informing themselves about.

Other organizations like “Rock the vote”, which was started by music artists in 1990, engaged celebrities like rapper Lil Jon and actress Lena Dunham in their video to encourage young voters to go to the poll. Their video received over 860,000 hits on Youtube and was retweeted over 300 times.

The early voters:

For many US citizens, voting already started ahead of the November 4. Over 18 million people already cast their vote before the actual day - some more enthusiastic about the prospective outcome than others.

On the day:

Given the ubiquitous use of smartphones, it's not suprising to see voters take selfies to record their patriotic act. Here are some of the shares under the hashtags #ivotedselfie #ElectionDay and #midterms:

And while some cherish their right to vote for historical reasons:

Others are already looking forward to the end of the campaigning extravaganza: