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How To Watch The Election Results In Real Time

by Melissa Cruz

Come Nov. 8, you won't need to sit huddled around a television to watch the election results in real time. Instead, you can watch either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump become our next president all online. Though there will be a host of more traditional media that can keep you up to speed — CNN and Fox News' websites, for example — you're likely to find the best coverage via Twitter. This will be an important move for Twitter, whose social media platform provides a natural home for politics, and, consequently, the biggest night in politics.

Twitter will be teaming up with BuzzFeed to provide real-time election coverage that night. The election night special, which begins at 6 p.m., will include a live stream of BuzzFeed News reporters hashing out results as they come in, as well as giving analysis on the evening's largest developments from the company's New York City headquarters.

BuzzFeed and Twitter have promised that their coverage will diverge from the usual, in which political pundits on major networks discuss the results as though they were "handed down by a priesthood," BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief Ben Smith told The Wallstreet Journal. BuzzFeed and Decision Desk HQ, an election results-tracking upstart, are aiming to demystify the process by offering a more transparent idea of how the votes are counted. "There’s no magic to it," Smith promised.

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In addition to their aim to make election night more digestible, Twitter and BuzzFeed are hoping to bring a more well-rounded team to their news coverage. Adam Sharp, head of news, government and elections at Twitter, told The Wallstreet Journal: "In between all those expected elements of election coverage, I think you will hear from voices you don’t typically hear from representing communities and different perspectives that are not generally represented on the dais of political analysts and campaign surrogates that have become the norm."

Of course, if you'd prefer to stick to tradition and get your election night coverage elsewhere, all of the major news networks will be running their own real time results. Moreover, YouTube will be streaming NBC, PBS, MTV, Bloomberg, Telemundo and The Young Turks on Election Day, starting at 7 p.m. EST.