This Is the Best, Most Anxiety-Inducing Way to Track Election Results on Your iPhone

For folks who want to stay connected to the elections every minute of the day, Apple News is rolling out a new feature late Tuesday (via Apple Insider). It’s integrating the Live Activities feature for election results, so users will be able to see the electoral count for each candidate change in real time on their iPhones. This will show up on the Dynamic Island and as a live widget on your lock screen.

To enable Live Activity for the elections, head to Settings on your iPhone, scroll down to Face ID & Passcode, enter your passcode, and scroll down to Live Activities. Enable the toggle if it isn’t already. Then, open the Apple News app and select the “Follow the 2024 election live” option on the home page. You can check under Top Stories or head to the menu to look for “Election 2024 Special Coverage” if it’s not there. Once you tap on that, you’ll be notified that Live Activity is enabled. If you want to pause or disable it, click on the banner again in Apple News.

Note that you’d need an iPhone 14 Pro or later to enjoy the full Dynamic Island experience, as older iPhones don’t sport the feature. But if you’re on an older generation, you’ll still be able to see the live widget on your lock screen. Apple Watch users can also track election results in real-time with the widget displaying live activity on their wrists, as long as the Watch runs watchOS 11.

Alternative ways of tracking election results include downloading certain apps on your iPhone. While that’ll get the job done, it requires slightly more effort to install the app and then look out for push notifications from it or, in some cases, open the app to receive the latest updates.

The Dynamic Island makes much more sense for an activity like this. It’ll allow you to monitor the results even when scrolling through Instagram. Apple has previously used Dynamic Island for activities such as sports and music, but election results are interesting. Some people, such as my coworker, might find this highly anxiety-inducing, but you can, of course, always turn it off or take a break.

It’s common for apps to introduce limited-time, special election-focused features or offers. Uber, for instance, is offering discounted rides to polling stations today. You can get 50% off up to $10. Lyft is offering a similar discount on rideshare, bike-share, and scooters.