When it comes to predicting election results, you probably look to exit polls, or to any of the major TV networks, or to your favorite online method of reportage. You can also look to Twitter. But if you’re a social media-connected person, perhaps there’s somewhere else you should be looking — on Facebook.

You may have noticed people “donating their Facebook status” in support of a particular candidate or in general, on behalf of the concept of voting, and therefore, democracy. (I haven’t done an exhaustive count of my 1650 Facebook friends, but the majority seem to be supporting Obama. Not a shocking development, I know.)

“But Esther, why are you telling us this here? Isn’t this a dating-related blog?”

Yes, of course. All will be clear imminently. In the next sentence, actually.

In honor of the election, SpeedDate.com made available ten free virtual gifts related to politics, half related to Obama, the other half to McCain. SpeedDate reported this morning, that tens of thousands of gifts were sent by SpeedDate’s Facebook application’s users over the past couple days, with some interesting results:
* Obama/Dem gifts were sent 51% of the time versus only 9% for McCain/Republican gifts
* The most sent gift was the ‘Vote Obama’ button with 24% of gifts sent (it even beat our default ‘vote’ gift)
* The least sent gift was the elephant that represents the Republican party with only 1%

For more on the breakdown, check out the SpeedDate blog.