Indiana, Virginia, New Hampshire: First indications. The suspense starts in Indiana. Most polls in the state close at 6 pm EST, or 4.30 am India time; others at 5.30 am IST. Indiana is a ruby red state where Obama has been running closely with McCain. If you are switching between web sites, be wary of results that do not include Gary, a city with a substantial African-American population. If Obama wins it, Indiana could be the canary in the coal mine predicting disaster ahead for McCain.Also at 5.30 am IST, polls close in Virginia and Georgia, and polls close in most of Florida and New Hampshire. All eyes will quickly veer to Virginia, which Obama has laboured to win. If he succeeds in the former capital of the Old Confederacy, he will most likely do exceedingly well from here on. Subtracting Virginia from the Republican column would give McCain very few routes to 270 electoral votes.New Hampshire is less predictive. But it would be a bad sign for McCain if he cannot capture these mavericks, whom he has been courting for eight years.Watch out for Florida…Florida is a voting experience unto itself. Whoever wins Florida, the fourth-largest state, gets a big leg up on winning the presidency. If McCain loses here, his path narrows. But the race is so close that Florida may not portend much about the rest of the country. The drama in this state, which has become synonymous with electoral dysfunction, may be in the new and creative ways in which voters might be foiled from casting their ballots.…And Ohio and North CarolinaAt 6 am India time, polls close in Ohio and North Carolina. While Ohio is the bigger prize, keep your eyes on North Carolina (where officials have the option of keeping the polls open until 7 am IST if there are problems). North Carolina is a red state that is newly competitive, again thanks to an aggressive Obama ground organisation. If North Carolina votes for Obama, the map is likely to bleed blue for the rest of the night. As for Ohio, it’s one of the nation’s biggest battlegrounds. For an indication of how things are going, check the returns from Stark County, a longtime bellwether.Pennsylvania: heart of McCain’s hopesAt 6.30 am IST, Pennsylvania and Missouri finish voting. Pennsylvania, of course, is the keystone to McCain’s survival strategy: It is the one big blue state where he has staked his claim, in anticipation of losing some smaller red states. If McCain wins Pennsylvania, it would keep him alive and scramble the picture for Obama. And it would lead to grave pronouncements about racism and the so-called Bradley effect of whites not being honest about their preferences to pollsters. Missouri is another red state where the contest looks close. But it frequently has voting problems that delay the count, so don’t expect right away to add this to one column or the other. When you do get the results, Missouri is usually with the winner.Two hours on, the Westerns beginColorado polls close at 7.30 am IST. This is a tossup that has been trending Democratic and is now leaning Obama. If he wins here, watch for chatter of a Democratic realignment. Early voting was big here — an astounding 46 per cent of voters cast their ballots before Election Day. New Mexico too closes at 7.30 am IST and is another red state that Obama has worked hard to turn blue. About three in every eight voters here are Hispanic; an Obama win would signal an important shift by Hispanics away from the Republican Party. Nevada, where polls close at 8.30 am IST, is the latest tossup to report.The Call may come earlyConventional wisdom suggests that if Obama wins, he will do so early, because the polls in so many tossup states — Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida — close early. Long lines or problems could delay the count. Watch to see how skittish, or not, the networks are about calling the states and the final outcome: CBS has signaled it might project a preliminary winner as early as 6.30 am IST, but all news organizations have nightmares about the debacle in 2000, when most made the wrong calls.An Internet electionThis is the first presidential election in which the Web provides advanced tools for a complete do-it-yourself election-watch. This puts even more pressure on the networks to remind viewers of their resources and heft — and to offer something different. The networks are offering more bells and whistles this year, but they are competing with their cable channels and their own Web sites as well as those of other news outlets, including nytimes.com.
