Instead of turning on their television sets, countless voters this election year chose to follow the presidential and VP debates online.  You could watch a live stream of the debate on basically every major (and local) news site on the web- but here are some newer, unique and interactive ways people chose to follow the debates.

1.    Twitter… of course, no social media list these days is complete without it.  Their 2008 Election center collects all political related tweets as they happen.

2.    Second Life- politically-minded avatars mingled at debate viewing parties hosted in-world.  You just had to be prepared to chat politics with a talking lion wearing an Obama shirt.

3.    Hulu.com election center. In addition to their live feed and clips from past debates, you could take a break and catch some of the most popular SNL sketches of the past months.

4.    MLive.com, Michigan’s news and resource center hosted a political analyst and undecided voters panel through streaming videos for the debates on their site.

5.    Your favorite blog. Voters chose their preferred (or a collection of) news or political blogs and followed live blogs or forums where anyone could comment or follow other voters’ comments as the debates happened.