Holy crap it's looking close. Things were looking pretty depressing before I left this morning - with Kerry and Bush sitting at 112 to 170 electors respectively. Seemingly the Washington count brought things into line, though Bush was still ahead.

The electronic voting machines have been the source of a few headaches, and it's not difficult to find reports of intimidation or intentionally misleading information (google for mailouts telling democrats to vote on Wednesday for administration purposes, or Nader featuring on ballot papers in electorates where he is not actually contending for President.)

Now with Florida out of the way (apparently firmly on Bush's side of the court) Ohio has become the king-maker; as I write the elector count sits at 242 Kerry, 249 Bush (though Faux News has once again pre-emptively both declared Bush the winner and put him at 259 - one vote away from the required 260 to become President). BBC news has an excellent election site with nifty applets showing all the information you might want on an interactive map of the US. Things became more interesting in the last half hour or so, with Bush leading at 50.9% (over Kerry's 48.6%) of the Ohio vote with only about 3% (I think this comes to over 100,000 votes) left to count. This is the first time since I've been watching Ohio's polls - a few hours now - that Bush's lead has decreased below the 51% mark.

Interestingly enough, the exit polls have proven useless in Ohio and Florida. They were accurate in every other state, but these two diverged for reasons unknown. Similarly curious is CNN's reporting of said polls - as of a few hours ago they actually changed the results in Ohio to indicate a Bush lead where previously they showed a Kerry lead. It's a good reason to prefer British broadcasting over US, even when reviewing information on the US election.

One more reason Australia's preferential voting system kicks ass. The US's Electoral College does nothing more than exacerbate the two-party system and move the voters a further step from true democratic representation.