Image by Agent Magenta via Flickr

For online Canadians looking to break through the Elections Canada blackout, there was only one real option: Twitter.

With the country divided up into different time zones, polls closed across the country at different times through the evening. Due to the elections laws here in Canada, this meant that a blackout was in order, so that voters in areas where polls were still open wouldn’t be able to see results from the parts of the country where they were still closed. However, these rules didn’t stop Twitter users from posting results live, as they came through.

Services like electopinion.ca and Twitter Search (via a variety of “hash tags”, a method for marking a “tweet” as pertaining to a certain topic for easier searching) made it simple for Canadians, and interested people from around the world, to follow the election and its results. And these microbloggers didn’t just stop with reporting the stats. There was much discussion as well regarding the outcome of the election, the cost to taxpayers, and even ideas about proportional representation. In short, Twitter provided a healthy forum for election issues.

As Canadians become more and more connected, things like media blackouts are becoming less and less effective. People want to know what’s going on, and there is always another person eager to share the story. Perhaps in the next election, there will be less blackout, and increased media coverage across the country. But like hundreds or thousands of other Canadian voters, I’ll be following the outcome on Twitter.

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