Election Night

There are reports of people waiting patiently for 6 hours to vote in some areas today. No election scandals (as yet), but it seems that Virginia were having problems counting damp ballot papers and were urging people to dry off before going into the booth (it has been raining - they're not going in straight from the shower!). People were being assured that, as long as they were in line by the time the polls were due to close, they would get to vote - even if that took several more hours.

The first of the polls closed nearly 3 hours ago (at 6pm eastern) and the news stations are trying to predict which way the states will go based on exit polls and initial returns. Hardly an exact science at the moment, as when I switched the TV on 2 hours ago they had only counted 1% of the vote in some areas. (For example one state closed, it was showing Obama had 55% of the 1%, but they were still calling it for McCain. History is important!)

Due to the voting system here it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote, but still lose the electoral college (as happened in 2000 with Bush/Gore). Each state gets a number of votes in the Electoral College based on population. For example Alaska gets 3, Virginia gets 13 and California gets a whopping 55. The race is on to get to the magical figure of 270. Currently (at 9:15pm) McCain has 64 and Obama has 174.

Apparently Missouri has backed the winner in every presidential race since 1904. Nevada also has a habit of picking the winners.

Its now 9:34pm. CNN are predicting Obama will carry Ohio. This is one of the key battleground states. This puts the tally at McCain 69 Obama 194. Bearing in mind that the Democrats traditionally carry Hawaii, California and the other Pacific coast states which carry 77 Electoral votes we can safely say that Barack Obama is the new President of the United States. All that remains to be seen is how much of a landslide this will be. Voting continues in the western states....