#IndyRef at the polls

Thursday, 18 September 2014

As polls across Scotland close, we looked at how people came together on Twitter to discuss and debate today’s historic #IndyRef vote.

Since the first televised #IndyRef debate on August 5, there have been more than seven million Tweets about the referendum, with around one fifth (21%) of those sent in the the past 48 hours alone (1.5 million).

Supporters of both campaigns used Twitter to make their voice heard in the run up to today’s vote. Since August 5, there have been 1.55 million Tweets mentioning hashtags related to the ‘Yes’ campaign. This compares to 500,000 Tweets related to the ‘No’ campaign hashtags - a difference of more than a million Tweets between the two camps.

The most-Tweeted referendum-related hashtags have been (since August 5):

  1. #IndyRef: 3.75 million
  2. #VoteYes: 1.1 million
  3. #Scotland: 439,000
  4. #ScotDecides: 272,000
  5. #BetterTogether: 224,000

This interactive map of geotagged Tweets shows the global nature of polling day, with conversation about the Yes and No votes spreading across Scotland and beyond:

#IndyRef at the polls

Click on the map to interact with it

You can also see how Tweets mentioning #IndyRef and other associated terms were Tweeted around the world on referendum day in this map, and throughout the campaign as a whole here.

Over the last 24 hours, key accounts have continued to attract new followers on Twitter as last minute voters make up their minds:

This visualisation from @TwitterReverb shows how the conversation about the #IndyRef hashtag peaked and troughed throughout polling day, as people turned to Twitter to share their views and debate their decisions:

#IndyRef at the polls

Most Retweeted

The most-Retweeted Tweet on referendum day came from @Andy_Murray, who shared his stance with his 2.7 million followers. That Tweet has currently recorded more than 18,000 Retweets and 13,000 favourites:

The referendum is the first time that under-18s anywhere in the UK have had the right to vote on a major matter of state. The Scottish Youth Parliament used Twitter to promote voting activity among 16-24 year olds throughout the day with their Twitter trend #YourVoteMatters:

With reports of record turnout at the polls, be sure to continue to follow along with #IndyRef on Twitter to find out the results of the nail-biting vote.