CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A number of Facebook, Instagram and Threads users were unable to log onto the platforms just a couple of hours after poll sites opened Super Tuesday.
While the outage seems to have only lasted for about two hours from shortly after 9-10:30 a.m., local political campaign strategists and their candidates rely on the ability to reach potential voters during critical hours on Election Day.
3News spoke with the Nueces County Democratic Party's Joseph Ramirez who says the Facebook crash delayed his political candidate from taking advantage of a lunch time surge of expected voters who might have decided to head to the polls after seeing a social media ad his team paid to have run specifically ahead of lunch- right around the time Facebook went down.
Ramirez said that while the $2,500 spot stopped running Tuesday at noon, the money was not the biggest hit.
"Yeah, you lost ads, but what you lost was time."
The campaign strategist said his team quickly resorted to 'old-fashioned' methods of reaching voters.
"We pulled over at Greenwood Senior Center and sent out a text blast."
The website DownDetector tracks user reported outages for social media sites like Meta's. User reports of Facebook being down spiked at 9:30 a.m. at more than 500,000 cases.
Steve Ray is a Republican local political consultant who said that social media has become a key tool on Election Day when it comes to campaign efforts for candidates across the political spectrum.
When candidates lost that tool Tuesday morning, he said he soon saw them doubling down on efforts to make up the potential difference.
"When you have a plan on Election Day you don't want it to change. If you're smart, you're hitting the streets again."
Ray says it looks to him like candidates are targeting voters who will be heading to the polls once they get out of work through Facebook Lives and text blasts. If there was another social media blackout, though, he says those with resources to make calls, send text blasts and knock on doors would likely do so.
"If you don't have other options, you're in trouble."
Luckily for candidates, Ray says he doubts the brief blackout will make too much of a difference come 7 p.m.
"It probably will not change any elections unless it was really close- if something comes down to a within a few votes."
As to the cause and timing of the Meta outage this Super Tuesday, Ray says it doesn't necessarily matter.
"It doesn't matter why it happened, it matters that it happened," he said. " And sure, it looks a little iffy and it certainly was not good, but it probably won't change any elections unless it was really close."
Whether candidates who don't take home the victory Tuesday night might look to the social media interruption as a factor in their loss or reason to challenge the results remains to be seen.