Exit Polling and Early Results

(6 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

From AlterNet: Election Day: Presidential Results

The first towns to tally their votes — Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location in New Hampshire — both came out in favor of Obama. It doesn’t take long to count the votes in either town. Obama defeated McCain by 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, an apparent upset, since the last time the town went blue was Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Hart’s Location gave Obama a 17 to 10 victory.

So far early voting is looking good for Democrats. Below are some of the pre-E-day numbers that have come in.

The UK Telegraph reported, “In a Washington Post-ABC poll, 59 per cent of those who had already voted across the country backed Obama, and 40 per cent supported John McCain.”

Political scientist Michael McDonald of George Mason has a comprehensive website displaying the most current information on the status of early voting. More than 25 million early votes have been cast so far, according to McDonald’s site, and the numbers clearly favor Obama, writes brownsox of DailyKos:

Florida: Early-voting Democrats are outnumbering Republicans at those sites by more than 20 percentage points, and a WSVN-Suffolk University poll has Barack Obama leading over John McCain 60% to 40% among early voters.

Georgia: Two million people, a record, cast early ballots in Georgia. That’s 60% of the total 2004 vote. Blacks comprise 35% of Georgia early voters, and women 56%, suggesting that as of right now, Barack Obama and Jim Martin are winning big.

Nevada: With more than 600,000 Nevadans already having voted according to the AP, “The early voting in advance of Election Day has been so heavy that Secretary of State Ross Miller increased his total turnout prediction from about 1 million to 1.1 million voters.” That lowers the early-absentee balloting percentage — but it’s still at 56 percent of the revised total of expected voters. In Clark County, Democratic early voting outstrips Republican by 52% to 31%, while in traditionally Republican Washoe County (where just a couple of weeks ago, Democratic registration topped Republicans for the first time since 1978), 47% of early voters are Democrats to 35% Republicans.

Iowa: Dems are leading in early voting in Iowa with 47.3% of Dems compared to 28.8 percent of Republicans and a huge 23.9 percent of unaffiliated voters.

Kentucky: It’s 58.5% Dem, 28.4% Republican and 13.1% unaffiliated. And things are looking blue in New Mexico’s early voting as well, with 52.7% Democratic and 32.8% Republican.

AlterNet will be providing continuous updates as it becomes available.  My experience with AlterNet is that there’ll be straight numbers with no spin or bullshit as the day progresses.

Check with AlterNet here throughout the day.