Welcome folks to OTR's liveblog of the presidential election results. We'll be at it until we have a winner, which could be as early as maybe 8:30 or as late as December. You never know. Well, here we go:

5:54 - First polls close at 6. I'm watching CNN all night (sorry Jon Stewart) because they have magical touchscreens floating around everywhere and eventually Anderson Cooper will show up.

6:00 - Parts of Indiana and Kentucky close now. If Obama wins Indiana that's enormous and McCain is probably going to get buried tonight. Obama will lose Kentucky for sure.

6:03 - Exit polls say that 61% of voters think McCain will raise their taxes, 70% think Obama will. Surprising that McCain was only 9 points behind there. 

6:06 - CNN headline says, "McCain Fights to the End." Sounds more sad than noble.

6:14 - CNN, you can't be having 10 minutes of commercials right now, this is the biggest ****ing election ever. Get with it. And I swear, if I see this PAC Rev. Wright ad one more time...

6:16 - Campbell Brown has arrived! Rejoice! So hot...Whoa. Three-dimensional holographic capitol building rising up from a table to show the senate and house races. It's like we're living in the future. But seriously, how are they doing this? The answer: Wolf Blitzer is a wizard. I knew it!

6:19 - First real numbers, McCain is beating Obama by 20 points with .001% of the votes counted. Oh noes!

6:21 - I have Politico, HuffPo, DailyKos and FiveThirtyEight open in four other tabs on this browser. Wow, I'm a junkie.

6:24 - Alright, I'm tired of CNN's commercial breaks, heading over to MSNBC. Wow, I'm not digging the yellow and black theme with the border graphics. This is a presidential election, not Iowa Hawkeyes post-game analysis.

6:27 - I've noticed that all networks are being very stingy with any exit poll results. Maybe they've finally learned something from the last two cycles.

6:28 - Obama leads 55-44 in Indiana with 1% reporting. Don't get excited yet...

6:29 - Higher income voters are split between McCain and Obama, but all McCain's states are southern/western (less rich people overall I'm guessing). Obama edges him out nationally 52 to 48 with the demo.

6:34 - Gah, I just looked at exit polls over at HuffPo. Bad me! Obama is leading pretty heavily, but exit polls are notoriously biased in favor of Democrats. I'd try to avoid looking at them if I could.

6:36 - Obama's lead in Indiana drops to 1%, still only 1% reporting though. I need to stop microreporting.

6:37 - Somehow Politico has NH numbers already, Obama leads by a lot with 0.6% of the vote counted. Damn it, what did I just say about microreporting?

6:40 - Live shots of Time's Square watch party. Probably where I would be if I wasn't liveblogging this.

6:42 - Evangelical voter exit poll results. Gee I wonder... They break 72-26 for McCain. Bush did 78%. Hmm...

6:43 - Obama down by 40 in Kentucky. I could say something derogatory here but I won't.

6:47 - Quantum of Solace looks so badass. Oh sorry, another CNN commercial break.

6:48 - THE COOP HAS ARRIVED!

6:51 - Whoa, is that right? Obama just jumped up to a 1 point deficit from being 40 points down in Kentucky with 9% of the votes in. What the...

6:57 - Georgia, Virginia, New Hampshire, South Carolina and the rest of Indiana and Kentucky are about to close. Virginia is huge. If Obama wins there, McCain's climb to victory is almost vertical.

7:00 - CNN projects Obama wins Vermont, McCain wins Kentucky. No suprises there.

7:02 - Obama carried every constiituency in Vermont except conservatives and Republicans... no surprise there. In Kentucky, CNN is reporting there are a lot of white people? Shocking!

7:08 - Mark Warner, a Democrat, won a senate seat in Virginia, a historically Republican state. Could this bode well for Obama in the area?

7:13 - Indiana is a battleground state and it's close... real close. 49% for McCain and 50% for Obama so far but McCain's ahead in Virginia though there are only 1% of the votes in. Way too early for predictions, I'm pretty sure CNN has learned that lesson. 

7:14 - Live shot of Grant Park in Chicago shows a huge crowd but no sign of Obama there yet. Oh wow! Look at CNN using that fancy shmancy hologram technology. They've beamed Jessica Yellin into the studio from Chicago. They're more excited about this TV tech than the election results.

7:19 - They're already reporting poll results from Florida and polls haven't even closed yet! A little overeager there.

7:26 - We're looking at the numbers in Virginia. McCain is ahead but we're only seeing two rural precincts. Analyzing the state this early is just an excuse for CNN to use the electronic map they are so obsessed with.

7:29 - "Very early" are the key words of the coverage so far.

7:32 - Poor John Kerry, he's probably reliving his loss all over again today since pundits keep comparing everything to the last election where everyone thought it would be President Kerry and then... not so much.

7:38 - CNN has fixed their Florida problem. Before they had Obama in the lead, which is just great except the percents didn't add up to anywhere near 100 percent. Now Obama is ahead 57% to McCain 43% but only 2 percent of the numbers are in.

7:54 - 16 states are closing in about 6 minutes. Big things are about to happen.

7:55 - "It's very early... BUT"

7:56 - South Carolina projected for McCain even though Obama is ahead by 11%?? Am I missing something? Oh exit polls, so mysterious. Apparently the percentages are misleading and it's not close at all.

8:00 - Lots of projections now: New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, D.C., and Massachusetts all for Obama. Oklahoma and Tennessee for McCain. That will bring us to 77 electoral votes for Obama and 34 for McCain.

8:05 -  The Wolf Man says CNN's gonna do it (election coverage) the old-fashioned way-- by counting votes. None of that '04ish media embarrassment this year!

8:12 - Grant Park in Illinois: Obama people scream wildly. CNN Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux fights to be heard.

8:13 - Biltmore Hotel in Arizona: McCain people listen to choir boys. No problems hearing Dana Bash's reporting.

8:21 - Obama strategist David Axelrod drops the change bomb and says the Obama camp has waited two years, so they can wait a while to draw conclusions.

8:24 - Axelrod says he's getting heartburn from not knowing what ought to be giving him heartburn. Do I sense an impending Pepcid endorsement?

8:31 - CNN gives New Hampshire to Obama, who scoops up a huge majority of educated people. It's 81-34 Bam Bam.

8:30 - Holy momma! CNN projects an Obama win in Pennsylvania. It's 65%-34% despite McCain campaign pumping funds and effort last minute into pursuit of the 21 electoral vote state. It's 102-34.

8:45 - Fox News banner reads: "McCain aides object to calling Pennsylvania for Obama." They may have a point.

8:50 - Martin talks about the "brothers."

8:53 - Why does CNN keep saying that the only mistake Obama has made during the entire election was his statement in Pennsylvania about people clinging bitterly to religion and guns?

8:58 - Alabama projected as McCain win though Obama currently leading by 2%.

9:00 - CNN Projects Obama taking Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, and New York. McCain gets WYoming and North Dakota. We call those consolation prizes... It's 174-49.

9:02 - Polls have now closed in: Colorado, North Dakota, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

9:03 - Based on current CNN projections: Obama, 174; McCain, 49. Still a long way to go, but Obama nation is going strong...

9:04 - Twice as many voters said age was more important than race. Unsurprising. Who would openly admit to being racist?

9:07 - Talking about the effect an Obama victory would have on the global perception of the U.S. In short, the world might respect us again -- maybe, possibly, hopefully.

9:10 - The Ragin' Cajun thinks this race is over. I, for one, would never bet against James Carville. Neither should you.

9:13 - CNN projects that the state of George will go to John McCain: 60% to Obama's 39%. Expected by everyone in the known universe without delusions of grandeur.

9:14 - 'Bama ahead in Ohio and Florida (by a small margin). CNN continues to plug their website, but OTR says you should stay tuned here. Forget every other website exists. 

9:19 - Dem. Jeanne Shaheen won the New Hampshire Senate seat. However, Rep. Mitch McConnell will win Kentucky's. The roller coaster ride continues, and I'm starting to feel nauseous.

9:21 - Pundits agree that it does not appear Obama is bringing many Democrats with him towards victory. In other words, no one will really owe their Senate victory to him. Not as many coattail riders as Reagan.

9:23 - CNN projects that McCain will win West Virginia, 53% to 46%. Hank Williams performing at the Biltmore Hotel, McCain's lair home base. Wait, who is Hank Williams???

9:25 - Wolf announces that a major projection is coming after the commercial break. Yes, let's put history on hold to see the trailer for "Valkyrie," Tom Cruise's forthcoming flop.

9:29 - A CNN update: McCain winning Virginia by 1%! So close; I can smell the fear emanating from Republicans in the area. It smells like moldy cheese.

9:30 - Obama still leading in Ohio. "No Republican has ever won the Presidency without Ohio."

9:34 - Major CNN projection: Obama will win Ohio! Crowd in Grant Park, Chicago erupts into applause. 

9:37 - WOW, Hank Williams is still performing over at the McCain camp. The crowd looks less than enthused. The camera panned over the audience, and I think I saw several people sleeping while standing up. Williams chimes in with an appropiately sober tone.

9:40 - CNN musing over McCain's chances of winning. He pretty much needs to win every state west of the Mississippi, which includes California. Good luck, McCain.

9:43 - Electoral count based on current projections: Obama, 194; McCain, 69.

9:48 - Obama to take New Mexico (5); McCain to take Louisiana (9).

9:49 - Obama winning popular vote by only 1% (roughly 320k). It would be pretty shocking if McCain won the popular vote, but lost the electoral one. Still, it's not a popularity contest, and California has yet to weigh in with its gazillion votes.

9:53 - Is McCain losing because of George W. Bush? CNN pundits say 'yes'. "America likes to give the 'other' guy a chance." Well, yeah, as long as that "other guy" isn't Nader or anyone from the ragtag band of third-party misfits.

9:56 - Iowa, Utah and Montana closing in 4 minutes.  Am I the only one who could listen to Anderson Cooper talk all night? *swoons*

9:58 - Americans like to "fall in love with their candidates." They're talking about Sarah Palin now, specifically about how she is out of touch with what the "real" America is.

10:01 - Obama wins Iowa. We're kind of just going through the motions now. There's no physical way McCain can catch up without flipping a dark blue state, which will not happen.

10:07 - Time to see what Stewart and Colbert are up to. Stephen has a bird on his shoulder. I should have tuned in 6 mins ago, I think I missed something important.

10:11 - I'm not sure if I can do Comedy Central this year. They're calling everything super late event though it's live (I know they have to play catch up, but still) and the jokes aren't as good off the cuff as they are scripted. They're just making like individual state jokes now.

10:13 - Haha, alright, maybe I can. Jason Jones at "Obama Headquarters" which is full of animated Disney forest creatures.

10:15 - Wow, the popular vote is extremely close. 50-49 Obama. Once Cali kicks in though that should bump him a bit.

10:17 - Latinos have gone big for Obama, almost 70-30. Si se puede!

10:19 - Back to the Magic Map. What happened to the 3-D capitol building? And the holograms?

10:21 - CNN projects Texas goes for McCain. In other news, grass is green. 

10:24 - McCain wins Mississippi. In other news, the sky is blue.

10:25 - You know, I just don't buy Tom Cruise as a Nazi Commander.

10:29 - Now we're all talking about what this presidency means for the country. Which is apparently a lot? Who knew?

10:33 - The Daily Show is interviewing people on the street about the Bradley Effect, which we now know is bullshit, at least these days. A bunch of middle-aged white people say they voted for Obama, representative of a larger whole.

10:35 - Al Franken is up in Minnesota, but it's too close to call. Couldn't a funnier comedian have run for Senate?

10:36 - The 3-D virtual capitol building is back! It's so....beautiful. And so....unnecessary.

10:46 - WILL.I.AM HOLOGRAM! This is totally some Obi Wan Kenobi shit. Help me Will.I.Am, you're my only hope.

10:47 - Technology aside, why the hell are they interviewing Will.I.Am? (I cringe every time I have to type that). Because he made that Obama song? Yeah, it looks that way. Anderson, find someone relevant to teleport in.

10:50 - People keep texting me about this hologram thing.  I'd say it's cool technology that could change the future of communication, but we don't even have damn video phones yet. At least not in mass supply.

10:53 - CNN has cameras all over the world. I have to imagine the rest of the world is pretty damn pleased about all this. Also, they have TVs in Kenya?

10:58 - Obama wins Virginia. He was behind all night, but came back late to take it. West coast polls close in a minute or two, they'll be enough to put him over the top.

11:00 - Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States. That's all, folks.

12:07 - President -Elect Obama says, "America I have never been so hopeful... we will get there."

12:15 and on - Yes we can.