Election bloggers 'a boon to democracy'

The clearest winners in the US mid-term elections were bloggers. They reported on voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages, and often provided audio tape or video footage as evidence (though this Youtube offering looks rather contrived to me). According to Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of internet governance at Oxford University, it's proof that the blog is a boon to the democratic process. He says that bloggers are therefore "helping to set the agenda for the mainstream media". (Via New York Times)