I'm Ready to Declare a Winner in the 2008 Race

Okay, all the arguments have been made. And I am ready to declare a winner in the 2008 race.

The Internet. (The other winner will have to wait until Tuesday night).

From the way campaigns connect to supporters, to the way those campaigns are covered, to the way voters decide who to vote for, 2008 has delivered the first truly 21st century presidential race. And election night promises to fortify the Internet's victory.

While discussing with a friend an election night viewing party he's throwing, he announced there would be "televisions all over the place." "That's great," I said, "but just make sure the WiFi is working." Because this year, the laptop -- along with the array of Internet-connected mobile devices -- has replaced the television as the must-have election night device.

Of course, we want the TVs, too -- but mostly just to see how the results are covered, what the anchors are saying, when they call it, how the winners and losers react, and how crazy John King gets with his Magic Wall.

For real time results, however, the Internet will be the go-to destination. A host of websites, starting with HuffPost, will make it possible for you to choose how and when you want to follow the results -- whether you want to follow them state-by-state and county-by-county or jump between the presidential race and hotly contested Senate and House showdowns. And do it interactively.

And if you are a real election junkie, you can log on to each secretary of state's page and get the latest numbers even faster.

The clichéd putdown about the blogosphere is that it's just people spouting opinions, but this election has shown it's also about expertise and information -- collated, graphed, spread-sheeted, distilled, and cross-tabbed. Witness the rush to relevance of fivethirtyeight.com and its wonky numbers guy Nate Silver. Lately, it's been hard to go even a couple of hours without hearing someone say, "Nate Silver just wrote about that poll and here's what he says is wrong with it..."

As the countdown to Election Day continues, here is a rough guide to some of the Internet's best offerings to help you fill the anxious, final hours of the campaign -- and some places to make sure you check out (or bookmark, if you are Old School like me) as the returns start to roll in on Tuesday.

First and foremost (and completely objectively, of course), I hope you'll check out HuffPost's exhaustive Election Night coverage. We'll be featuring up-to-the-minute stories, stats, and video, along with a host of interactive maps, electoral widgets, and fun (and surprisingly accurate) tools like the Intrade and Betfair election predictors. We'll also bring you intensive reporting and on-the-scene coverage of the vote, including any voting irregularities, from the battleground states by our OffTheBus' network of citizen journalists. And, of course, we'll have our usual top-flight commentary -- including a host of top bloggers who will be liveblogging the returns as they come in. Plus, a number of our international bloggers will be weighing in from various spots across the globe, letting us know the local reaction to the results. All in all, we're aiming to be a one-stop-shop for all things Election Night. (For those of you who will be out and about on Tuesday, be sure to check out our new HuffPost Mobile site -- http://m.huffpost.com -- which we launched today, in time for on-the-go election day coverage.)

Here are some other don't-miss sites:

For raw polling data, check out FiveThirtyEight, Pollster.com, Real Clear Politics, Talking Points Memo's Election Central. Here's our final poll compilation page.

YouTube has put all its election video onto one page, and has begun a project called Video Your Vote, in which you can video yourself voting and upload it.

Google has some incredible election map pages. For instance, here's a great page of historical election maps. Their election homepage is here, use it to find your polling place, get directions, and read what each candidate says about the issues.

Congressional Quarterly also has a great page of historical maps here.

The American Prospect's election night guide can be found here.

DailyKos and TPM both have fun and very functional interactive maps.

TechPresident.com's numerous tools and resources -- including The Real Electoral Map and the Twitter Vote Report -- can be found here.

For poll closing times, here are pages by CNN, 270 To Win, Swing State Project, and The Green Papers.

Want to do your own interactive electoral vote map? There are several to choose from: PBS, Yahoo, CQ, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post.

So wherever you will be spending Election Night -- at a party, a campaign event, a bar, or hunkered down on your couch biting your finger nails -- be sure to have your computer, your BlackBerry, or your iPhone nearby, and be a part of what promises to be a historic night -- both for the country and for the Internet.

See you online Tuesday night -- and, I hope, every waking moment in-between. I, for one, despite my paeans to sleep plan to postpone sleeping from now until after the last race is called.

Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers

If you are in the San Francisco area, I will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit on Friday, November 7th.

And be sure and check out the HuffPost Election Forecast Contest

Comments

[janmarbol]

that was ME! I said the internet, yayyyy!

[CintiBlue]

I've always appreciated the foreign posters who come to HuffPost and it is a thrill to celebrate, via the Tubes, with the world.

Thank you, Arianna.

[frappe]

Arianna, I can't thank you enough for providing this valuable forum for all of us who are passionate about our politics. It was wonderful to have a place where one could go to communicate with like-minded souls about the important political issues and events of the day, some of which stirred our passions and emotions . And to have it all culminate in a wonderful, historic victory for Barack Obama was the absolute icing on the cake. Thank you! The Huffington Post will always be a favorite place to go to read about and discuss politics.

[JEP]

"...people spouting opinions, but this election has shown it's also about expertise and information..."

....the latter, often in response to the former.

You have described in this sentence where the bone and the marrow of the internet meet.

[traveler56]

I've enjoyed the election so much more due to Huffinton at my fingertips. Reading Blogs brings opinions into my living room. Being alone, it has been good to share ideas & see how others think.
Very happy to have found you.

[FrictionSoul]

The losers are the rural counties without broadband Internet access. They turn on the TV instead. It's faster, more reliable and doesn't require selecting anything.

[NicoloM]

Arianna-- I know you are speaking at Web 2.0 today, so are gifted people like Larry Lessig and Joe Trippi, who have seen the potential of the internet.
It would be great if you were to start a discussion to guide and expedite the next evolution of the internet to create an integrated and coherent forum to tap into the vast power of the intelligence of people around the world so that intellect and reason has mode of expression to lead the change we need to pursue the next level of civiliztion and humanity.
Sounds lofty, but a "Apollo program" to harness the energy of the internet would be the core to many other solutions.

[nellie]

You're so right, Arianna. And let's not forget http://www.barackobama.com and now http://change.gov

It's why Net Neutrality is so important. It should be one of the top priorities of the new congress.

[grey sells]

I've not read anywhere but seemingly overlooked is the contributiion of blogs and the internet to literacy. It seems that typos and spelling errors in submissions are readily forgiven. Spell checkers a boon too. Seeing word spelled right and in context teaches us all about words and meaning. Think of those for whom English is a second language. Some of the blogesphere range from banal to disgusting; but lots of internet content of great interest, clever, funny and thoughtful. Maybe we're all reading more even with the demise of print media. But whatever, many more people are contributing on the internet than would have submitted a "letter to the editor".It's all bout about access, technology and non judgemental medium. Except if you get flamed.

[freecheese]

InfoGroup (frmr. Infousa) helped Clinton. Who helped Obama ?

[erosann]

it's exactly right! Barack Obama won, the first Black American president in the White House....

[WIDem]

Arianna,,Every day I couldn't WAIT to get my HuffingtonPost.com fix! Anything and everything I needed to know about what was happening in politics was right there at my fingertips! As a 51 year old woman who is not the most computer savvy but a total political junkie,,this was the absolute ultimate fun! Thanks!

[THINKB4USPEAK]

I'm a latecomer to the internet, only getting online in the past year, but it has been a delight to find a forum of people voicing the same observations I' ve been making for eight long years.This technology has changed the face of politics,if not the world, forever. You can't just put a lie out there and expect it to get legs because of it's source (They couldn' t print it in the paper if it wasn't true; but, I saw it on TV!) . I cautioned my internet ga-ga friends that the "information highway" could also be the "MISinfomation highway". (It must be true, I read it online!) But the rapid growth of world-wide interconnectivity HAS thrown light into dark areas, and sometimes I'm quite happy to be wrong in my fears. Huffington Post, you lead by example. THIS is change I can believe in.

[obiterdicta]

Wow - so TRUE!

I'm lying in bed watching msnbc live stream on my laptop in Melbourne AUSTRALIA.

Go Obama. Come on USA!

[beaupritchard]

Start warming my Ipod up ...