Like virtually all liberals, I am delighted to hear that voters around the country have given back control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to the Democrats. This is on top of Democrats now having the most state governorships as well, particular in my home state of Massachusetts, where Deval Patrick has made history as the first Black governor of the state (and only the second popularly-elected one in American history).

But what gives me just as much pleasure is to read that, as reported by the New York Times, that this year, due to the popularity and emerging power of “social” technologies such as political blogs and video-sharing sites such as YouTube, American citizens were much more diligent about reporting and recording incidents of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement.

In a new twist this year, many bloggers buttressed their accounts of electoral shenanigans with links to videos posted on the video Web site YouTube. . . . Brad Friedman, perhaps the most dogged critic of electronic voting machine technology in the blogosphere, said he saw his site traffic spike at left-leaning Bradblog.com, as reports of machine malfunctions began pouring in from around the country.

That the blog now has a firm place in the choreography of national events — and in elections perhaps more so than in any other cultural exercise — is a boon to the democratic process, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance at Oxford University and a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. . . .

Alluding to some of the voter intimidation reports that unfolded on Election Day, he added, “There’s also a real difference between hearing about a call that tells someone they’re not allowed to vote and actually hearing the call as if you are receiving it.” Some bloggers placed what were said to be digital recordings of such calls online for the world to hear.

Elsewhere online, voting machine problems also filled many posts on Talking Points Memo, a liberal site that seemed to take the initiative in tracking complaints, malfunctions and alleged malfeasance by Republicans.

In other words, Democracy has made comeback, in more ways than one!