Election night is a perfect example of one of the best aspects of the Internet: instantaneous delivery of information to widely fragmented audiences. No waiting for the next day to get results from the newspaper. I didn’t even have to wait 15 minutes for CNN to put my race on the ticker.

My favorite site last night? Not CNN.com, ABCNews.com, Google News – not even washingtonpost.com, which had the most information among major media about my local races. I went straight to the source: the Virginia Board of Elections.

For all the fancy features and flashy graphics on the major news sites, elections are all about the data. The Virginia site provided much more recent information than what the newswires provided. The super simple, text only site was easy to read on my cell phone. As a data geek, I was able to drill down and see which counties had reported their totals and look at county by county vote distribution.

If only they’d make it this easy to vote.