And the first calls of an Obama victory are trickling in; election prediction site fivethirtyeight.com has published their final prediction, giving Obama 349 electoral college votes to McCain's 189, with 98.9% probability of an Obama victory. And according to the BBC's live text feed, Ladbroke's has already paid out on an Obama victory. Of course, it's not over till it's over; unless there is a resoundingly clear result, the result will almost certainly be thrashed out tooth and nail in legal challenges and counter-challenges. Though right now, it looks like there will be change.
One should probably mention the other, lower profile, electoral races of the day. The Congressional race looks set to strengthen the Democrats, though could fall short of giving them 60 seats (required to prevent the Republicans from blocking legislation by filibustering, which appears to be some sort of parliamentary denial-of-service attack). And various states have a number of ballot propositions being voted on. Californians, for example, are voting on whether to constitutionally ban gay marriage, whether to approve a high-speed railway line between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and whether to rename a sewage treatment works near San Francisco after George W. Bush.