Social media and the federal election

While the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the major political parties are "Parties miss the mark in Twittersphere", the current Federal election is likely to see social media used in more diverse and effective ways than ever before in Australia.

Why and how?

Here's some samples.

Statistics

• Australians aged 18+ in 2009: 16,812,886 (ABS)
  
• Australians aged 18+ who use the internet: 14,122,824 (ABS/Nielsen)
  
• Australians enrolled to vote: 13,869,021 (Australian Electoral Commission via ABC Campaign Pulse)
  
• Australians using Facebook: 9,300,240 (Facebook via ABC Campaign Pulse)
• Australians using MySpace: 1,400,000 (Nielsen via SMH)
  
• Australians using Twitter: 1,150,000 (Nielsen via ABC Campaign Pulse)
  
• Australian internet users spent 17.6 hours per week using the internet, but only 13.4 hours watching TV, 9.3 hours listening to radio and 3.4 hours reading newspapers. (Nielsen)
  
• Almost 50% of Australian internet users watch TV and use the internet at the same time. (Nielsen)

Sites
And here's a few of the sites supporting Australians through the election:

• Election Leaflets
  Photograph and map electoral leaflets distributed across Australia
  
• Twit worm
  An online worm using Twitter to measure sentiment, used in the leaders debate
  
• Twitter trends
  A custom version of Trendsmap created by the ABC for the election to track mentions of electoral issues
  
• Twitter #ausvotes
  The primary Twitter hashtag being used to discuss the election
  
• Australia 2
  Site for people to share and vote for their top priorities for Australia

If you know of other websites and social media tools created for the election, please let me know.