presidential election results 2008 - CNN

Posted by Yuka as World

CNN) — Sen. John McCain arrived with a cadre of Secret Service agents at
a Phoenix, Arizona, church to cast his ballot Tuesday in a historic election
that pits the Arizona legislator against fellow Sen. Barack Obama. Cindy McCain, in
white, looks on as her husband, Sen. John McCain, places his ballot in a box
Tuesday. Shortly before McCain cast his ballot at Albright United Methodist
Church, his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, voted in the City Hall where she
once served as mayor.

Palin voted quickly behind a red-white-and-blue curtain
at the Wasilla, Alaska, City Hall, before stepping outside with her husband,
Todd, to speak to reporters.
Asked if she voted for embattled Sen. Ted
Stevens, R-Alaska, who was convicted last week on corruption charges, Palin
declined to divulge who she voted for.
“I don’t have to tell anybody who I
voted for,” she told reporters with a smile.
Palin is scheduled to head for
Phoenix, where she will join McCain to watch the election results roll in.

McCain is scheduled to make visits to Grand Junction, Colorado, and
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Colorado and New Mexico both voted for President Bush
in 2004, but the latest polls have them leaning toward Obama.
Obama hit the
polls earlier. He and his wife, Michelle, voted side by side at Shoesmith
Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, as their daughters Sasha and Malia
looked on. The couple took about 20 minutes to complete their ballots.
“I
hope this works. I’ll be really embarrassed if it doesn’t,” Obama told a poll
worker as he fed his ballot into a machine.

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iReporter Lindsey Miller, 23, said Secret Service
agents were checking names off a list and using metal-detecting wands on some
would-be voters as they entered the polling place.
“All the agents and stuff
was a bit overwhelming for having just woken up,” the University of Chicago
graduate student said. “A lot of people were in pajamas. I know I was — not the
time you want to be on national TV.”
As the Obamas departed their
polling station, Biden and his wife, Jill, arrived at theirs — Tatnall School
in Wilmington, Delaware — to cast their ballots.
Biden was scheduled to head
to the battleground state of Virginia, where Obama campaigned Monday, before
joining Obama in Chicago, where the Democratic candidates plan to watch election
results roll in.
Obama’s schedule includes a stop in Indianapolis before he
returns to Chicago, where he plans to play basketball — something he’s done on
past election days.
Obama spent his Monday campaigning in states that have
gone for the Republican candidate in recent elections — Florida, North Carolina
and Virginia. See photos and videos from polls across the country ?
McCain,
meanwhile, tried to turn the electoral math to his favor with a multistate blitz
through the battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico
and Nevada. He needs those states to get the 270 electoral votes for
victory.
No matter who wins the electoral college, the 2008 presidential
election will be a historic one, as the nation will send either an
African-American or the oldest first-term president to the White House. A McCain
win would also mean the first female vice president in the nation’s history.

Americans are expected to head to the polls in record numbers Tuesday, election officials
have predicted.

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 100 percent of
registered voters — all 21 of them — cast their ballots just after midnight in
the first moments of Tuesday morning. For the first time in 40 years, the town
voted Democratic in the presidential election, 15 to 6.
Reports of minor
problems and delays in opening polls began surfacing early Tuesday, shortly
after polls opened on the East Coast. Among them: Palm Beach, Florida, reported
minor sporadic voter machine failures, and wet voters in rainy Chesapeake,
Virginia, were being asked to dry off before voting because they were getting
their optical-scan ballots wet, according to election officials in those
locales.
CNN is asking people to call its Voter Hotline at
1-877-GO-CNN-08 (1-877-462-6608) if they witness any problems or irregularities.

Record numbers have already cast ballots in early
voting. As of Monday, more than 24 million voters had voted. Election experts
predicted more than a third of the electorate would have voted before the polls
opened on Election Day.
Voters across the nation were reporting a mixed bag
of experiences early Tuesday. iReporter Jason Dinant, for instance, said there
were no lines at his polling place in Syracuse, New York, while Lynn Linnemeier
said it took her about two hours to vote in southwest Atlanta.
“The line
wrapped all the way around the front of the building and into the back parking
lot,” Linnemeier said.

The 2008 presidential election has proved to be
the most expensive in history.
Obama repeatedly shattered fundraising
records by soliciting donations over the Internet. As of Monday, Obama had
raised more than $454 million, compared with the $230 million raised by
McCain.
As McCain and Obama emerged from their parties’ conventions, the race
was essentially a tossup, with McCain campaigning on his experience and Obama on
the promise of change. But the race was altered by the financial crisis that hit
Wall Street in September.

Obama began to pull away in the polls
nationally as well as in key battleground states. A CNN poll of polls calculated
on Monday showed Obama leading McCain 51 percent to 44 percent with 5 percent
undecided.
Obama also opened a lead in the race for electoral votes. As of
Monday, CNN estimated Obama would win 291 electoral votes and McCain would win
157, with 90 electoral votes still up for grabs.

We will wait for the result from CNN