http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32633099

Cripes and gosh. The 2015 UK election coverage has just started and it’s incredible already - by law there, you can’t report on speculated results until the polls are closed, so the first we hear of the forecast is when the exit polls are released at 10pm BST.

The exit polls are completely different from everything all polls indicated in the run-up to the election. It was expected to be virtually a tie between the Tories and Labour at 280ish each with nobody ably to form a majority even with a two-party coalition. But instead, the Tories are predicted to get an unbelievable 316 seats - this puts them 10 short of a majority, and still able to form the coalition with the Liberal Democrats again (even though they’re expected to be ousted in a record-breaking fashion, going down to only ten seats). Meanwhile, Labour will be hammered down even further than they are already to 239 - a disaster for them.

The other big thing is the unprecedented SNP prediction - from having only a few seats at the last election, they’re now predicted to control Scotland. And I don’t mean get a majority of seats - I mean they are predicted to get every seat in mainland Scotland, with just the Orkney and Shetland islands to the north remaining in support of the Liberal Democrats. This would involve swings of up to 50% from the Labour incumbents.

The exit polls show such extremes that there are questions about whether they can possibly be right - either they’ll be the most inaccurate in UK history, or this will be the biggest election upset in UK history.

It's time once again to watch an untold number of people who I wouldn't trust to sit the right way up on a chair make decisions as to how to screw up the lives of me and my friends. Today the Americans voted, Obama has been miles ahead in the polls though the media still insists it couldn't be closer, and we will see tonight if a major upset has been pulled off.

You may notice that I am slightly less enthusiastic about this than four years ago - back then, the result felt like something big, a new era (and it still remains a wonderful cultural achievement). Since then, however, I've lost much faith that this decision actually makes a whole lot of difference, mostly because my post-election expectations were too optimistic. Social change is in reality a painful, drawn-out process during which I've seen a lot of active revulsion towards the type of culture in which I used to live, and multiple false starts and reversals of social evolution along the way. And it's inescapable - for what seems like the last three hundred millennia we've been bombarded with each side slinging negative campaign adverts at each other that are edited specifically for an audience gullible to the point of braindeadness, pandering to a disturbingly simplistic and hateful black and white culture.

With that in mind, let's get this over with - my only real hope is that it ends within the next twelve days.

20:05

I always forget how astonishingly useless the early results are. A couple of states are coloured in that include no surprises, and then the news channels keep cycling around saying that one candidate is 60% ahead but only about twelve votes have been counted. At least many of the critical states are close to the east coast, increasing the possibility that I can just forget about this and go to bed quite soon.

20:20

Still no real news, but I wanted to note that the BBC appear to be presenting the election from the holodeck this year. I admit this is something that I sort of love about elections - it makes every network pit the full force of their graphics designers against each other in producing this newscasting end-of-series special.

I'm surprised David Dimbleby is doing it - I didn't think that there would be another election marathon left in him.

20:32

Everyone's got their eye on Florida (29) at the moment - it keeps going back and forth as more votes are counted. Losing this wouldn't absolutely destroy Romney's chances, but only in the same way that being run over by a Parcel Force van wouldn't absolutely destroy a hedgehog.

I was looking forward to watching the results coming in on Electoral Vote, a purely data-driven site that I trust, but he's just put a note up saying "The servers are totally overloaded. This may not work. I'm trying but not hopeful."

You know what? I'd love watching this if both parties were remotely sane.

21:00

While Whitney chooses the newscaster to listen to on the strength of their hotness, a new hour marks the beginning of some more unsurprising results coming in. This is mostly the equivalent of the rubbish blue eastern states at the moment, with a red wall full of tiny amounts of electoral votes. A couple of more populous states like New York (29) have been declared as blue, though, and we can never forget about brave New Mexico (5) down there in a blood-red sea.

21:05

How is it possible that it's this difficult to cast a vote in this country, anyway? You'd think they would be prepared for an election by now - in between the news people telling us that they can't yet tell us anything, they're talking about how ballot machines have dodgy touchscreens and they're running out of paper ballots. And the swing states still have people waiting outside to vote, with the races in at least five of them still too close to make any guess whatsoever.

I'm already beginning to fear that this election will be another 2000, with recounts going on for weeks and it eventually being decided not by voters but by lawyers.

21:20ish

This has been like watching the world's most boring trainwreck - I'm practically comatose but time is still flying past somehow and I just can't look away from it. Pennsylvania's just gone to Obama - this isn't one of the absolutely vital states for Romney, but it was one that was predicted as only barely democratic, so it might be a sign of more blue to come.

Florida (29) is still blue by the skin of its embarrassingly phallic shape, and Ohio (18) is also blue by a rather safer margin.

One of the two big certainties has been officially called so far - Texas (38) has been coloured, but California (55) hasn't. If we pre-emptively include that in the running total, Obama is over 200 now.

21:40

Wisconsin (10) has been predicted as going to Obama as well now - I still don't understand why some states can be declared instantly despite only 2% of precincts reporting and with the other candidate 4000 votes ahead. Nevertheless, that's another little uncertainty becoming a little more certain.

21:42

Oh, Elizabeth Warren's just won the Senate seat here in Massachusetts. That's a rather nice surprise, her beating the incumbent pickup-truck-driving smeghead Scott Brown, even though her adverts were the marginally more annoying ones.

22:00

Wow, it's been another hour already. No real new results at all. Everything's too close to call. This is like staying up hitting F5 on my exam results page all weekend even though I knew they wouldn't come out until Monday.

22:18

So from where we stand now (on the BBC), Obama needs 113 more electoral votes to win. Certainties still not counted on their map are California (55), Oregon (7), Washington (12), New Mexico (5) and Wisconsin (10) - cumulatively 89. So 25 more have to come from somewhere - Florida (29) would do it instantly, but getting Ohio (18) or Virginia (13) would also more than likely be enough to block all possible Romney paths.

The trouble is that we won't know about any of those for about five days yet.

22:30

Just been interrupted by an advert for Colon Flow, reminding me that there are problems with this country that nobody can hope to fix.

22:44

A very nice, dignified concession speech from Scott Brown just now, to a soundtrack of absolutely shocking behaviour from his audience. At the moment they're chanting "Go, Scott, go" - a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with.

I haven't mentioned much but the presidential race so far - the Senate is looking surprisingly democratic at the moment, with a couple of seats being picked up that I didn't expect.

And it's looking quite like Romney will be ahead in the popular vote by a fair margin (though this is still with no western states reporting). Goodness knows I'm not staying up all night - we'll find out whenever it's all over.

23:00

The expected blue boost as the west coast closes - Obama is on about 250 now. No surprises, nothing worthwhile talking about. Count faster, you lot in Florida!

A moment later

Oh, Iowa's been called for Obama now. That's only six electoral votes, but every little helps.

23:12

It's all over - Ohio's gone to Obama as well and that really does put him up over the edge. According to "projections". How does this even work. That's it, I'm going to bed - bye.

Well done.

Hey, you lot - go and vote along with the other 41% of the American population expected to do so today. The other 59% won't realize how much they miss the opportunity until they don't have it (not that I'm saying this is likely to happen to anyone soon, but anything's possible with the sort of backward maniacs you get in politics around here).

I suspect the time has already passed to stop encouraging the Americans and go back to laughing at them, but what can you do.

I wasn't totally sure what reaction the last post would get, but my Friends list remains happily undiminished. In its place today, here's something related but much lighter - something that used to be a fixture for my family on Friday nights and that I've had to keep downloading to keep up with since moving here. Come to think of it, this series is now where I get most of my UK news from - and this was one of their best episodes ever. As if somebody decided the normal name for the programme just wasn't unwieldy enough, it's:

Have I Got A Bit More Election News For You (Series 39 Episode 5)

It's 45 minutes long but well worth watching, if you haven't seen it by now and/or are one of the people who have been following the election from outside the UK. I was particularly impressed with the performance of the only just defeated (the previous night) Lib Dem MP Osbit Lempik, who I hadn't really known about before this, but he seems wonderfully able to laugh at both himself and the madness of the entire election campaign. Indeed, like Paul Merton says, watching this was very therapeutic - "it's all over, now let's just take the piss out of the whole thing".

They're still going! Truly, David Dimbleby must be an android. 26 seats remain undeclared, but nobody can win now, so there will have to be dealing either way to form a stable government. Or you could believe the Daily Mail and just accept that this means we're all going to die (as hung parliaments are just behind mobile phones and talcum powder in things that cause cancer).

In tribute to one of the real stars of the evening, who managed to turn "What do you think of the exit polls?" into a loaded and confrontational question, and was heard to say "Look, it's 2:30am, just give me a straight answer" to struggling politicians throughout the night, here's the best thing that radio Dead Ringers ever did.

The Continuing Adventures of Pax-Man

Apart from anything else, I have to admire the Jimmy-Harting of the theme music... coming so close to the actual tune without actually being it.

This probably isn't something you hear very often, but Election 2010 Challenge has to be the cutest political site I've ever seen.

A group of stickmen queue up at the bottom of the page, and one of them bounces forwards to present its user-submitted idea for Britain to you. If you like the idea, you give it a thumb up, and the figure will celebrate among disco lights or fireworks, or release a load of balloons, then hop off to the other side of the screen while the next stickman in line boings up to talk to you. If you dislike the idea or it's incomprehensible because of the failing school system, you can bring out your inner Caesar and stab the thumbs down button, whereupon the stick figure's head will explode or be abducted by a UFO (it grows a new one), or it'll be squished by a wad of "Cash For Honours", or, wonderfully, a duck-house (it's a long story).

I'm still fascinated by the poll figures (the three links underneath the wheel). The three coloured sections have never been anywhere near that equal before, and it looks more and more likely that we're going to be stuck with a hung parliament.

Because America is a nation whose foremost national talent is that of making things slightly worse, I don't suppose I should admit too much surprise at the result of the election in Massachusetts yesterday. I should explain to people outside America that due to the death of Ted Kennedy, an early election was called to fill his seat in the senate for the remainder of what would have been his time in office. This was an important race because it represented still having a 60th vote for the health care... debacle that has been going on for the last while, if the seat went to a Democrat as it should have safely done.

The reason for the result is twofold - because, as I have seen increasingly over the last three years and exemplified by this particular election, the choice in American politics is directly between completely awful and completely useless, and that the American public, having the patience of a Jack Russell terrier and the collective memory of a particularly forgetful goldfish, decide that it would be a good idea to once again get behind the party that had been ruining the country for the last eight years on the grounds that it was having some visible effect.

The hope of last year was good while it lasted, but with this result in what's meant to be a very liberal and forward-thinking state, it's clear that the country is already slipping back to normal and once again inviting a respect level from the rest of the world which hovers around undisguised contempt. Like so many snails climbing wells, it tries but then slides back, evolving every achievement steadfastly backwards - this, gay marriage, everything, until its only contribution to Western culture is the invention of the sausage-wrapped pancake on a stick. Remember this? That's a representation of your future. Knickers to the lot of you.

At last.

I said before that no matter who the President was this time, it would be most remembered as a step up from Bush. I was wrong about that, because against all odds and expectations we got the option that seems the best for moving the world forward, but, equally importantly... it's over. A term that should never have existed in the first place, that was inexplicably extended four years in, and that seems to have lasted a lifetime, is now behind us. President Doofus (as John Stewart has taken to calling him) is now out the door, after having joked "Welcome to my hanging" to introduce his portrait being put up in the White House, in possibly the best thing he's ever said. The contrast was unbelievable last weekend, when we got their speeches one after the other and it was such a change to have someone who looked like he knew what he was talking about rather than that shaved monkey we've had to put up with for the last while, although impressionists everywhere are suddenly going to find themselves much shorter on material. Over the next few years we're going to hear more of a much more pleasant voice that can string sentences together. It's going to be strange at first, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Now, I would be lying if I said that all the comments that I heard from the many election-tracking sites that I couldn't stop visiting for months disappeared from my head. I imagine that it's because I tended to visit primarily liberal sites, but all comments that I saw from the Republican voters were childish, inflammatory and seemed to be concentrating far more on getting their side to win, rather than even mentioning the resultant effect on the country and the world. Fairly early on, one of them said he was looking forward to "the liberal savior" being swatted away effortlessly, and even much later on in the campaign, I saw so many comments saying that the Republicans now had Obama "right where they want him" (about 150 electoral votes ahead, at that point. I thought they had more ambition). Worst of all were the racists and white supremacists that vowed to make things as difficult as possible for him simply because of his race.

And now that despite their blind belief, he's won... well, you're not supposed to retaliate if the right thing wins out over the ignorance of the masses, are you? That's why it's the right thing. It's about what you think is best for the world, not a competition like I saw some people making it. You don't gloat, because it's a victory for what you believe is good, not something to turn back at the spiteful people for.

...

Hah, you twats.

The final tally looks likely to be 364-174 now, based on a couple of predictions that aren't anywhere near rocket science. That's pretty much landslide territory - which I was hoping for, but they certainly kept us waiting for it yesterday evening. I don't think it's truly sunk in yet, even after a few hours' sleep, and even though it didn't go on for nearly as long as I had though it would. President Barack Obama. The words still seem unbelievable. Well, technicaly he's President Elect Barack Obama until January, but still, in 2008, America have elected their first black president. It's an absolute landmark. You know in all those futuristic films when the president's always someone like Morgan Freeman? We're there now. Not long until flying cars. I've bought two papers reporting his victory, so we can file them away and give them to our children as cheap-as-free 18th birthday presents or something.

Thanks to kjorteo, marcobiagi, dr_dos, and lordrosemount for being my main contacts from at least two corners of the globe during the evening and for sharing the historic (yes, I'm sorry, I said it) experience as it happened, along with everyone else who messaged me throughout the process. It's a sign of just how important this is to everyone that so many from Britain stayed up until about five in the morning for it, and that my parents wanted me to phone them and wake them up as soon as we knew the result. I thought that I would be able to make a leisurely update with the numbers every half hour or so, consulting a few other people's journals along the way, but it was more madly hectic than I ever imagined with information coming in constantly and I'm still catching up with sites that I meant to read as the whole thing happened, so I recognized the point of live-livejournalling the whole thing was diminishing throughout the evening. I hope that you weren't too surprised this morning if your Friends page consisted of... me.

Of course, as much as we all would like to believe it with the level of enthusiasm last night, this isn't going to fix the country in one day - but already it's clear that by making this choice, America's standing in the eyes of the rest of the world has improved immeasurably. But if, as the next president said in his acceptance speech, he tries to reach out even to the people who John McCain was trying to quieten down during his concession, who would try to turn his message of hope into one of fear and hate, and tries to put the "united" back in USA... then even though We don't All Live In Future World just yet, I would like to think that each day from now on might be just a little bit brighter.

The crowd in Phoenix are looking very damp and glum just now.

Anyway, it's quietened down quite a lot since the initial rush, hasn't it? At first I was hugely worried because a couple of very red or leaning-red-but-might-turn states went first and gave me a heart attack thinking that everything was turning to the Republicans. But then an avalanche started, and a blue flood that I initially thought was overoptimistic seems to have held. I have about twelve different poll sites open, my processor may actually be melting, and I'm having difficult putting words and letters in the right order - but on the whole I now feel safe in calming down.

Perhaps a slight surprise is that while North Carolina has been getting gradually closer (it was about 3000 last time I checked), Virginia, which I had thought was a lost cause very early on, is now about 50,000 ahead for Obama. And that, unlike all other results so far, is with 90% reporting. At the moment, if all predictions are correct, Obama wins by 14 electoral votes - but I wouldn't say no to an extra state, even if the one of those two that looks likely is now 13 instead of 15.

CNN have nothing to report now, so they're arguing about whether they're a centrist or leftist country and asking whether they've moved. The result is comfortable enough that the preferred coverage of the election in the flat has switched to the the smuggest man in the world and the second-smuggest man in the world, even if CNN have holographic buildings springing out of their table.

I've switched one of my obvious predicted states from Colorado to Hawaii. It feels a bit safer.

States so far: 35/50 (39/50 with predictions)
Electoral votes decided so far: 342/538 (469 with predictions)
Democrats: 207 (+HI +CA +OR +WA = 284)
Republicans: 135