The local protesters were opposing Northern Pass, an electric project that threatens to kill what's left of the tourist industry here.

No one famous was present. No candidates' family members that I saw. Foreign press outnumbered US press.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixville_Notch

Well, I suppose quick footwork, ready evasion, a sure certainty of position and being impossible to stump are all required for both jobs.

Note that we scooped CNN by two minutes. The Huffington Post by four minutes. The Boston Globe by 18 minutes. The New York Daily News ("Live Updating" ha!) by 31 minutes. And Fox News by 47 minutes.

Making Light for the win!

Notice that, since last election, Dixville has lost half its population (The Balsams closed).

It was bought, that sale fell through, and it's been bought again.

The ski area is closed too.

In the UK this could result in six months in jail or a £5000 fine, under the theory that it may influence those that have not yet cast their votes. I can see that, with all the time-zones and people and everything, it would be more difficult to co-ordinate this in the US, but it feels weird to me.

The USA is a foreign country. They do things differently over there...

And then Jim tells us.

In the UK, Jim would now be the target of a police investigation into his inappropriate behaviour!

Speaking as a Californian, watching national races be called one way or another before our polls closed was always very...vexing to me. And it reduced the votes on local issues, unless there were big enough state issues to bring people to the polls notwithstanding the pre-determined outcome of the national stuff.

(Of course, speaking as a Californian, we were also always very predictable about which party would get our electoral votes.)

I gather it's even more annoying in Hawaii.

I gather it's even more annoying in Hawaii.

Be glad that the US didn't hold onto its protectorate in the Philippines and then make that a state along with Alaska and Hawai'i.

Actually, I've been following Vermin Supreme. He's got some interesting points. His main focus is on dental hygiene, and he wants to be clear that there is no reason to fear the Dental Police under his regime kicking down your door at 3 AM and hauling you off to Dental Reeducation camp, as long as you brush your teeth.

He has a two-part energy policy: first, he's going to provide every American with a pony (and it will be mandatory to keep your pony with you at all times, for federal identification purposes), and he expects to be able to harvest the manure for methane production.

The other prong of his policy is to use zombies on treadmills to generate electricity.

All in all, there's a lot to like on his platform.

I might have if I hadn't been trapped in the last few days by a mindo that makes me read his name as "G-g-grinch".

Cue Fox News analysis for the rest of the day...

My guess, and this is strictly a guess, is that the registered Republicans voted for Romney and Gingrich, while the remaining three Independents voted for Huntsman and Paul.

Here, Independents can vote in any race, while registered party members can only vote in that party's primary. Around 40% of the state is registered Independent.

I myself am an Independent. Last time around I voted in the Democratic primary, since that was the more interesting race. This time around, I'll be voting in the Republican primary. Again, the more interesting race.

(In the USA, voting precincts can announce the totals as soon as all of the votes are counted. That usually takes hours-to-days, though, so it's no problem with influencing the vote elsewhere. The national media has taken to refraining from "calling the race" before the polls close on the west coast. Used to be, they'd call the race before the polls even closed in the state, and we'd get things like "CBS is calling NameOState for Candidate with 12% of the districts reporting....")

I suppose our election laws on this point predate the invention of the telegraph, and what state wants to be the first to change?

Fox News drilled a hole in the bottom of the barrel a while ago. The only question left is how deep the hole will get before it collapses.

Except that the Philippines are on the other side of the international date line, so their results would come in first. Ouch.

The reporters all had to find other places to stay, though.

Braxis@12, while election rules certainly are different here in the US, Dixville Notch is extra special - the town voters all show up and vote a minute after midnight, and then they can close the polls and announce results because everybody who's eligible to vote has done so. Combined with New Hampshire's rules allowing independents to vote in any party's primary, it can lead to interesting results; back in 1992 the Libertarians won (Andre Marrou, who'd been Ron Paul's vice presidential running mate in the 1988 election, campaigned in Dixville Notch and got more votes than either of the major parties.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j01Wkw8Lqu4
Gingrich the Newt

Totally safe for work.

In the UK, polling stations open at 07:00 and close at 22:00 on the dot. Ballot boxes are then transported to the constituency counting office and the count commences. The record is currently held by Sunderland South where, in 2005, 32,000 ballots were counted in 43 minutes.

The question is, given that the lads and lasses of the north east of England managed to count around 750 votes per minute, why was Dixville Nox so slow?

Newfoundland Time Zone: 8:30 am - 8:30 pm (UTC 1200-0000)
Atlantic Time Zone: 8:30 am - 8:30 pm (UTC 1230-0030)
Eastern Time Zone: 9:30 am - 9:30 pm (UTC 1430-0130)
Central Time Zone: 8:30 am - 8:30 pm (UTC 1430-0130)
Mountain Time Zone: 7:30 am - 7:30 pm (UTC 1430-0130)
Pacific Time Zone: 7:00 am - 7:00 pm (UTC 1500-0300)

There's a three-hour maximum difference, still, but instead of five time blocs, there are only three. And the vast mass of the population's votes are still being counted when B.C. polls close.

OTOH, I recall Dan Rather making a passionate appeal for people in California to get out and vote against Reagan. The equivalent doesn't happen here.

Last Canadian election there was a #tweettheresults which trended worldwide - punctuated with humour like

"Darth vader is Luke skywalkers father #tweettheresults"

Hi, Henry@35 :-)

It's a long day for poll staff any way you slice it though.

If it helps, the first time I read it I saw "pointful" and thought "opposite of pointless"; I had to re-read it to grasp that "talking-pointful" is closer to a synonym.