When did you last look at an election poll tracker? Today, probably. Maybe yesterday. How much time did you spend considering how that information flows from the pollsters through data centers via scripted pages and eventually to your browser? You probably didn’t give it a moment’s thought.

But stop for a moment. Aren’t these live trackers a miracle of technology, a desire to share information, and human ingenuity?

To fully appreciate the poll-trackers of today, let’s take a look back at how we used to share election data 100-plus years ago. Read on, and then, when you next fire up a live poll tracker, take a moment to ponder the miracle of data and design that has created it.

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