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Engadget's Election Day liveblog
Engadget's editors will be watching the election results roll in all night. If you want to know what they're reading, where they're tracking the vote and what is capturing their attention on social media tune in here to the Engadget election liveblog. And, if you've got questions not answered by our guide to the candidates hit us up on Twitter and we'll do our best to answer them.
Expect more vote suppressing misinformation on Election Day
While the internet is filled with sources providing accurate and unbiased information aimed at getting informed voters to the polls on Tuesday, some corners of it are taking an alternate approach. A Buzzfeed report cites 4chan posters cooking up various memes and campaign-lookalike graphics intended to confuse and mislead potential Hillary Clinton voters. We've seen a preview of this with Twitter ads that promoted a "vote by text message" hoax and it appears there could be similar efforts in store for tomorrow.
How the internet can help you vote tomorrow
Tomorrow is election day in the United States. More than a year of political maneuvering, partisan fundraising, polarizing debates and 24-hour election coverage comes to a close on Tuesday, November 8th. However, that's not where this wild ride ends. Tomorrow, US citizens and the electoral college will choose a new president to lead the country for the next four years, ushering in a new political era with any outcome -- whether Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. If you're an eligible voter and you want to be a part of this historic decision, there are plenty of digital tools designed to help you figure out where, when, how and why to vote.
Election take on 'The Oregon Trail' is almost too realistic
You may have no problem voting in the US election, but others won't have it so easy... and a web game is making that point all too clear. GOP Arcade and the New York Times' opinion section have posted The Voter Suppression Trail, a spin on the classic The Oregon Trail that draws attention to Republican-backed tactics making it difficult for minorities to vote, such as fewer polling places and intimidation. As you might guess, where you live and who you are makes the game either trivially easy or a serious challenge.
Trump's campaign staff took control of his Twitter account
Have you noticed that many more of Donald Trump's recent tweets are obviously from his staff, rather than from the presidential candidate himself? It's not because he's busy on the campaign trail. According to the New York Times, Trump's team "wrested away" control of his Twitter account. While there's no official reason given, it's said to be out of concern that Trump's off-the-cuff online remarks are doing his campaign more harm than good -- a late-night insult or inaccurate statement would come back to haunt him in the next debate or Clinton ad.
FBI says new emails won't change the results of its Clinton probe
Those newly uncovered Hillary Clinton emails may have stirred up a lot of last-minute electoral drama, but they won't make much of a tangible impact. FBI director James Comey now reports that the messages (found on devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner) won't change the bureau's recommendation against pressing charges. The investigation, which went "around the clock," combed through all the unearthed emails to see if they shed any new light on Clinton's use of a private email server during her term as Secretary of State.
After Math: Politics as usual
It's been a crazy week for US politics, what with the end of the contentious 2016 election just around the corner. The New York Times announced that it would lower its paywall for the 72 hours surrounding election day while human dumpster fire Peter Thiel tried to explain away his support for Donald Trump. Security experts are also investigating why one of Trump's servers keeps pinging a Russian bank as the FBI investigates one of its own Twitter accounts for violations of the Hatch Act. And no, you still can't vote by phone, dummy. Numbers, because how else are you going to rig an election?
US is ready to hack Russia if it interferes with the election
American officials are nervous that Russia's alleged attempt to influence the election could extend to the vote itself, and they aren't willing to take any chances. A senior intelligence source tells NBC News that US cyberwarfare agents are in a position to hack Russian critical infrastructure (including command systems, the electrical grid and telecoms) if there's evidence of an attack that disrupts the election in a "significant way." The US isn't expecting such a large breach, but the message is clear: we can hurt you if you meddle with the democratic process.
The New York Times is free to read for the election
Some things are more important that profit. This election is one of them. As such, the New York Times announced on Thursday that it will eliminate the paywall to its website from November 7th to 9th. This move will give the entire internet, not just NYT subscribers, access to the site's reporting. The promotion will run 72 hours, from 12:01am Monday through 11:59pm Wednesday. During that time, the NYT plans to broadcast live election election coverage, as well as a Facebook livestream on election night and a call-in show hosted by the crew of the The Run-Up podcast.
Experts question if Trump servers shared info with Russian bank
A handful of computer scientists and DNS experts discovered that over the course of four months this year, a Trump Organization server irregularly pinged two servers belonging to the prominent Russian entity Alfa Bank, according to Slate. As former New Republic editor Franklin Foer reports, it is not clear what type of communication passed among the servers, whether emails or spam, but multiple experts agreed that the messages were sent in patterns consistent with human input. "The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion," DNS authority Paul Vixie told Slate. "The operative word is 'secretive.' This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project."
Trump campaign launches streaming Facebook show
We've seen Donald Trump alternatively use social media to issue everything from an "apology" to an almost unfathomable number of insults, and now it's an avenue for video broadcasts. After a debate night livestream that some considered a pilot for a potential Trump TV video offering, the presidential candidate's Facebook page is now hosting a nightly video show. Hosted by Trump advisers and supportive commentators, the campaign tells Wired it will go live at 6:30PM ET every day. Similar to the apology, using Facebook allows direct access to potential voters without any questions or interference, although I'm already expecting to hear about how the stats are rigged when its viewer numbers fail to surpass those of Chewbacca Mom.
Amazon Echo now fact-checks politicians
You've probably heard politicians make more than a few outlandish claims, and not just in the run-up to the US presidential election. Do you really want to swing by a fact-checking website every time a candidate stretches credibility? As of now, you don't have to lift a finger. Duke Reporters' Lab has introduced an Amazon Echo skill that lets you fact-check any politician scrutinized by PolitFact, FactCheck.org or the Washington Post. If you want to know if Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is telling it straight, you just have to ask your wireless speaker whether or not a claim is true.
Did Trump pilot a TV service during the debate?
Just ahead of last night's debate, Donald Trump launched his own Facebook Live video stream featuring coverage and analysis before, during and after the event. The feed, which featured analysis and slick graphics, could be a preview of a Trump TV network rumored to be in the works. "If you're tired of biased, mainstream media reporting (otherwise known as Crooked Hillary's super PAC), tune into my Facebook Live broadcast," Trump said in a Facebook post
Climate change took a backseat to scandal at the presidential debates
While the third and final debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton covered national debt, gun control -- and whether or not to accept the results come election day -- climate change barely got a look in. In fact, environment was hardly on the radar across the span of all three debates. As we summarized in our election guide, the majority of scientists are convinced that human activity is responsible for rising levels of CO2 and mean temperature increases. This will have powerful effects on crops, sea levels and weather patterns -- and our lives. Political policy, when it comes to climate change, is very important.
Amazon Alexa can answer your debate and election questions
Since your racist uncle is not a reliable source, many Americans have turned to Alexa for information about the presidential election. It's hard to say whether that's good or bad, but Amazon has taken notice and released new commands for its AI assistant ahead of the next debate. You can now ask questions about the time and channel of the debate, where it's happening, and afterwards, who won.
Facebook would like you to endorse political candidates
You don't have to run a big media outlet to endorse a candidate this presidential election... or other elections, for that matter. Facebook has introduced an endorsement feature that lets you back a political candidate beyond tapping a "like" button, letting others know where you stand. Mercifully, though, you won't have to endure the wrath of less-than-sympathetic friends if you don't want to. While you can certainly make a public endorsement if you want to share your views with the world, you can limit the audience so that only your more open-minded (or like-minded) friends will see it.
4Chan may have wiped Clinton campaign chief's iPhone
Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, John Podesta, might be having a particularly lousy week. In the wake of WikiLeaks dumps revealing Podesta's email and the sensitive account details inside, intruders (apparently from 4Chan's /pol board) claim to have hijacked his iCloud account and wiped his iOS devices. They may have been the ones who briefly compromised his Twitter account, too. Podesta's social account is back in running order, but it's not certain what happened to his iPhone and iPad.
Twitter teams with BuzzFeed for a live election night stream
Twitter doesn't want its live US election coverage to stop with the debates. It's partnering with BuzzFeed News on a show for election night, November 8th. Visit Twitter starting at 6PM Eastern and you'll get a steady stream of results and analysis as the votes pour in. And you might have reason to tune in through the social network instead of resorting to TV. The two companies are working with volunteer data outfit Decision Desk HQ to make calls on election results instead of leaning on a single source, like conventional broadcasters.
Facebook triggered a spike in US voter registration
How well do those online voter registration campaigns work, really? Better than you might think. Both officials and the Center for Election Innovation & Research report that Facebook's four-day voter registration campaign, which sent friendly 17-word reminders starting September 23rd, triggered spikes in registrations across the US. These weren't just moderate bumps, either. Sign-ups in a given state grew anywhere from double to 23 times what they were on the 22nd, sometimes adding tens of thousands of voters.
YouTube challenged TV in the second presidential debate (updated)
Did you choose to watch coverage of the second US presidential debate on your computer or phone instead of your TV? You're not alone... in fact, you might have plenty of good company. YouTube reports that round two of Clinton versus Trump racked up 124 million worldwide views across live streams and on-demand videos, compared to 'just' 63 million TV viewers. That's a roughly 40 percent jump over what YouTube saw in the last debate, although it's notable that there were fewer concurrent viewers -- the town hall debate saw a peak of 1.5 million versus 2 million the last time.
