Yes, we can- and yes, I did
Wednesday November 05th 2008, 8:39 am

And we’re off!

Live updates through the day. Hit a SHIFT+F5 to load the latest.

Australian readers – the first polls to close will be my voting state, Indiana, which shut at 10:00am AEDT. Sorta. The state presently straddles two time zones, Eastern and Central, so eastern Indiana on EST closes at 6:00pm EST. Polls in ‘western,’ or more accurately, extreme northwest (near Chicago and so in the Central time zone) and far southwestern Indiana, close at 7:00pm EST (11:00am AEDT).

If Obama takes extremely conservative and often racist Indiana, it’ll be not only a miracle but a sign of a potential landslide. Indiana has not voted for a Democratic president since LBJ in 1964. McC leads Indiana on the last aggregate poll by 4.5%.

Time & Date.com has a Personal World Clock so you can watch the time zones roll by. SwingStateProject has a great time zone map which lists all times referenced to EST, to make it easy to convert to Aussie time.

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, famous for opening their polls just after midnight on 4 November, voted Obama in a landslide.

Live electoral map from Daily Kos.

HuffPo’s guide to watching the election

RealClearPolitics: polls map

Pollster.com: Be wary of exit polls

WaPo, The Fix: Hour-by-hour breakdown of states to watch

WTHR channel 13, Indianapolis – results begin release at 7:00pm EST (11:00am AEDT), live stream available. Indiana weather is unusually warm (75F/24C), sunny and dry for early November, increasing the chance of a high voter turnout.

Indianapolis Star/News, a traditionally conservative newspaper in a one-newspaper town (despite about 3 million people in the greater Indianapolis area)

Obama makes surprise last-minute stop in Indianapolis, his last public appearance before heading home to Chicago to watch the tallies come in

Indiana results, county-by-county (disable adblock to view)

8:06pm EST: Obama wins Pennsylvania, all of New England, leads 55%/45% in Florida, 69%/30% in Ohio

10:50pm EST: Obama 207 electoral votes, McC 141

11:12pm EST: Obama 293, McC 142 – GAME OVER

President-elect Obama sounds soooooooooooo nice.

-weez


10 Comments so far
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Nice, will keep an eye on it here at work.. thanks for the linkage.

Comment by Dan 11.05.08 @ 10:25 am

Well, heck, I’d say you ‘Statesiders’ have yourselves a new POTUS.

Comment by Dan 11.05.08 @ 3:26 pm

Cheers, weez!
The Dem’s Youth Vote (18-29 y.o.) seems way up — That’s gotta be a good sign.

Liberal Bourbon, Delta blues on NPR, grins on the weez, t’sa good day.

Comment by Hip 11.05.08 @ 4:04 pm

Thanks fellas.

Obama’s victory speech was nothing short of inspiring, hairs-up on the back of the neck sort of stuff. I’d like to believe it’s Camelot II but I’m a little too old for that. We’ve nowhere to go but up.

Let’s see how quiet King G can be until 20 January.

Comment by weez 11.05.08 @ 4:27 pm

holy shit, Obama’s going to carry Indiana!

Barack Obama 50% 1,352,356
John McCain 49% 1,329,370


Unbelievable.
You gotta figure that this is the place where the local KKK got pissy with me in 1978 because I wouldn’t join up. Obama still didn’t win rural places, in the past known for deeply racist beliefs and activity, like Hancock & Tipton counties, but he’s still going to win the state.

Comment by weez 11.05.08 @ 5:53 pm

Naturally, Martin Luther King is being mentioned a lot in Aussie news coverage of the Obama victory. However, if I hear one more Aussie journalist refer to Dr Martin Luther King, Jr as ‘Luther-King’ I’m going to scream. ‘Luther’ was Dr King’s middle name, not a hyphenated portion of his surname. C’mon guys, get it right.

Comment by weez 11.05.08 @ 6:10 pm

What the hell, Weez!?! I thought I could count on a write-in vote from you, but apparently not.

Comment by Dr. Cam 11.06.08 @ 3:32 am

Cam, the problem was your running mate showed up one day with a head full of ibogaine and a ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ doll impaled on a bayonet. AND I’m not so sure about your PhD from ‘The University of the Universe.’ You’ll get your chance, young man, you’ll get your chance…

Comment by weez 11.06.08 @ 6:32 am

Highlight of my day of being a voter advocate in Indiana:

At two minutes before 6:00 pm a car came skidding to a stop in the parking lot of the polling place. Inside the car was a middle aged woman driving and a younger woman in the passenger seat, a mother and daugther. The windows on the car were up, but we could hear the mother screaming, “Get Your Ass Out Of This Car And Get In There And VOTE!.” The younger woman slowly got out of the car and sauntered toward the door. The poll workers, who had come outside to start taking down the signs, all waved her in calling, “Come on! Get in here!” When the daughter came back out after voting, the mother said, “What Were You Thinking? This Is Indiana! Every Vote Counts!”

And at the end of the day of keeping my opinions to myself I was finally able to say, “Let’s go home and watch Obama win!”

Forgive my overuse of exclamation points. It really was an exclamation point kind of day.

Comment by rainie 11.06.08 @ 1:21 pm

magic stuff, rainie, thanks for that. 🙂

And yeah, what WAS she thinking? 😆

Comment by weez 11.06.08 @ 2:29 pm



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