American Election Day 2008


Photograph: Tim Sloan/AFP

US voters queue to elect president

An election day of unprecedented engagement in the longest presidential campaign in US history brought exhausting queues and a handful of reported voting problems in polling stations across America.

Conscious of the delays caused by an expected record turnout, voters in several US states began queuing up to make their choice before the sun rose. In some areas of Virginia lines were forming from 4am, two hours before the polls opened.

The Election Protection Coalition, an alliance of several voting-rights groups, collected reports of scattered difficulties at polling stations across the US. Tales of broken ballot scanners and touch-screen voting machines were particularly notable in the swing states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

In Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, legal skirmishes erupted over the method of counting provisional and absentee ballots, which could determine the margin of victory if the race remains close into the night.

America votes in historic election

Voters across the United States are flocking to polling stations to choose a new president.

Republican John McCain is attempting to defy the opinion polls, while Democrat Barack Obama is seeking to become the country's first black president.

Mr Obama and Mr McCain voted in their respective home cities of Chicago, Illinois, and Phoenix, Arizona.

Several key states are reporting a heavy turnout. A total of 130 million Americans are expected to vote.

If that figure is confirmed, turnout will be higher than in any election since 1960. About 29 million have voted early.

For a more sober take on this election by Chris Floyd - Failed States: America and Iraq, Rotted by War Crime or anything by Arthur Silber

To keep perspective Eschaton is the place to be.

A rather good concise post from Ken MacLeod

I don't expect anything radical to happen if Obama is elected, he is just as much a part of the system as his opponent McCain, only his campaign was better run but I appreciate that for many Americans after the horror of the Bush years it seems some sort of change, what change, well we'll just have to see.