Twitter polls roll out globally, allowing anyone to consult their followers in tweets

The feature will be rolling out 'in the coming days', Twitter said

Twitter logo is displayed at the entrance of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco (KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images)

Twitter has rolled out its "polls" globally, allowing people to vote on tweets apparently anonymously.

The option is accessed by clicking the little poll button that will appear in tweets, alongside the option to add location or a photograph. Once that is pressed, users will be able to label the polls two options and then add it to their tweet, to which it will stay attached.

Previously, the only ways to conduct a poll on Twitter were a little messy: either asking people to reply with their vote, to send out messages using specific hashtags or to track the number of people favouriting or retweeting a tweet.

But the new option neatens up that process as well as adding extra ways of tracking votes, including seeing how many have been cast and how the two options compare.

Each poll is open for 24 hours, and can only offer two options. The results are open to the public.

The polls don’t appear to offer the option to see who has voted, meaning that votes appear to be cast anonymously. Users can't vote on their own polls.

Twitter said that “there’s no better place to get answers than on Twitter”, and that the new feature was a “new way to engage with Twitter’s massive audience and understand exactly what people think”, whether that is on an election issue or the name of a dog.

The company said that the option would be coming to users “in the coming days” to iOS, Android and the desktop. It has already been launched for some users, and seems to be appearing on an account by account basis.

They were initially unveiled in a test phase, apparently only to select accounts in the US.