- MTV is going to hold a live fundraiser for the Jersey shore. It's about time they paid back to the community they took so, so much from.

- Jon Hamm's penis is an Obama supporter, naturally.

- Here are the two main characters of your favorite TV show of all time, telling babies to get out and vote.
http://youtu.be/QJpv_1YkFLs

-Here are photos of all the celebrities voting on Election Day. ALL of them. Thanks, Huffington Post!

from iam.beyonce.com

Pop singer, style icon, and vocal Obama supporter Beyoncé, whose husband Jay-Z played a show in Ohio to support the President's re-election bid yesterday, has posted an image of herself posing with her absentee ballot. Apparently Beyoncé still votes in Harris County, Texas, the county of her childhood home Houston; no word on whether she voted Ted Cruz for Senate, as she blocks the ballot with her hand (showcasing a set of Bachmann-worthy manicured talons and a giant amber-colored ring--are we sure she's not in the GOP?).

Meanwhile, Lena Dunham of HBO's Girls has spent Election Day encouraging her Twitter followers to send in their voting-day outfits: Ms. Dunham's equipped with "sunglasses and a patriotic peacoat." Ms. Dunham, who recently filmed an ad for Barack Obama, is according to New York State's database of voters a registered independent, has been encouraging her fans to get dressed up for the polls--though when you're Beyoncé, every day is an opportunity to dress up, even when you're only walking as far as the mailbox.

As the time line elapses from Oct. 21 to the current second, each candidate's blue or red orb — for Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively and obviously — expands and shrinks according to their Twitter popularity over time. Scroll your mouse over one of the tinier circles and the candidate's name and Twitter handle will pop up. There's also a search feature. Hey, it's not as game-changing as buying a hashtag, but still pretty cool!

In case you were wondering, the most-covered candidate this election season was Christine O'Donnell, The Upshot reported earlier today. Her circle is so engorged in the Times diagram that it stays at the maximum size for the entirety of the animation. And that's too bad — we would have loved to see a spike on Oct. 28!

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Hmmm. This rationale may have been convincing in 1845, when the law was passed that made Election Day a Tuesday. Now, it's just absurd.

As Dan Amira at Daily Intel points out, the number one reason people fail to vote is "No time off/too busy."

Amira has a great interview with Jacob Soboroff, executive director at Why Tuesday?, a group dedicated to changing when we vote. Soboroff would prefer a Saturday/Sunday vote, and says big names like Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama have endorsed this idea.

It seems like a good idea until you realize that it will completely disenfranchise the hipster vote, who consider Friday and Saturday sacred party days, and Sunday the Lord's way of curing a hangover.

bpopper [at] observer.com

@benpopper

Its place atop the Twitter totem pole was prearranged — it's a "promoted trend," which ensures it will stay on the list, right there above #bieber4australia. But while topics have mostly been bought by, for example, film studios hyping a movie, the organization backing #Election is none other than The Washington Post. As a spokesperson for Twitter told Poynter, it is the first time a media organization has promoted a hashtag on the social networking site, marking a type of collaboration that might predict how the old guard will utilize the microblogging service's ranking functions in the future.

When a Twitter user clicks on #Election on the left sidebar — or whenever it's included in a tweet — the aggregated tweets containing that hash tag will be filed under a tweeted link to a Post story. The message that the paper now has in that prime real estate says "Can Michelle Obama give Harry Reid the boost he needs? A last-minute campaign swing." Then it links to the story.

With such a fast-track to Twitter's showcase of the moment's most vital topics, The Washington Post is making a bid to be the indispensable resource for all things election day, at least in the eyes of Twitter devotees. Though it will certainly give the paper's website some sort of boost today, the "Election" hashtag is essentially worthless by tomorrow. The Poynter story doesn't indicate how much the paper paid for the exposure, but it will take more than one day befor any real integration between Twitter's 140-character bulletins and something like the Post's fully formed news reporting can take place. 

Regardless of how many extra hits the deal brings the Post, this kind of stunt will most likely take place again. As Twitter grows it will become a more accurate reflection of the world's news pulse, and at this point we can agree that even our oldest and most cherished media organizations need Twitter more than Twitter needs them. With the estimated value of Twitter now equal, or perhaps higher, than that of The New York Times, this is becoming less and less surprising. 

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Update - Noon: 11,751 voters have checked in from 7,440 locations. Video of Crowley talking elections and astronauts below.

Foursquare users who glance at their mobile apps this morning will notice something new: polling stations near them pushed to the top of the Places page.

On top of this, Foursquare has created a special "I Voted" badge, which unlocks as soon as a user checks in to a polling station.

Will location notifications and game mechanics help to get out the vote? It's certainly an interesting experiment. As of 9:15 a.m., more than 3,800 folks had checked in to vote at some 2,300 locations all over the country.

"We use game mechanics to encourage people to do things we think they'll be really excited about doing," Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley told Read Write Web. "It could be traveling to different countries or seeking out new places or new experiences. I don't think of it so much as a game. It's using the mechanics to, you know, influence behavior and try to change behavior a little. And I think that really plays into some of the stuff we're doing with the I Voted Badge.

The group skewed 2/1 male to female, although this probably reflects the demographic of Foursqaure more than gender participation in our grand democratic process.

When all is said and done, Foursquare should have some interesting data on which polling stations saw the most activity.

Add this to the city's official Twitter tag for reporting problems at polling places and there is going to be a more detailed snapshot of how the election played out at the street level than ever before.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

Crowley Talks Astronauts, Voting via Game Mechanics and Foursquare's Incredible Growth