November 8th, 2016 – Election Day Live Blog at the OB Rag

6:22pm In Colorado, Clinton has 58% to Trump’s 36% – not all in yet. Kansas is Trump’s; Massachusetts is Clinton’s, as is New York and New Jersey; Trump takes Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama and North Dakota. In Virginia, Trump leads by 49% to 46% but precincts from Richmond have not reported in.

House of Representatives: looks right now as there will be 199 Democrats to 236 Repubicans; that’s an improvement.

6:20pm  The following states are too close to call: besides Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, PA, New Hampshire, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota.

6:19pm pst – Lots of updates …. the biggest cliff-hanger, again, is Florida. Right now, Trump leads by 148,000 votes with 93% of the precincts reporting. Trump needs Florida to win, Clinton doesn’t.

5:52pm Evan Bayh loses his Senate rebid and Marco Rubio stages a come-back.

5:43pm  OBceans voting …

5:34pm  North Carolina extends voting hours in some counties

The North Carolina board of elections has extended voting hours at several Durham County precincts after technical problems caused lengthy delays earlier in the day, The board voted to extend hours by sixty minutes each at the Bethesda and Cole Mill sites, and by shorter amounts at other locations. Polls were originally scheduled to close at 7:30 p.m. A state court on Tuesday evening denied a lawsuit filed by voting rights groups asking for a 90-minute extension for all sites across the county.

5:30 pm Here’s where we stand now, according to MSNBC.

5:27 pm pst – It’s neck and neck in Florida with both Clinton and Trump at 48%.

5:20pm – Clinton leads in North Carolina, but it’s close.

5:09pm – BREAKING NEWS – Horrible news from an Azusa California  – 1 dead and several wounded by man with a rifle near polling place in Azusa :

One person was killed and at least three others were wounded Tuesday in an active shooting near a polling place in Azusa. Authorities said police were dealing with at least one female suspect who was heavily armed. But several witnesses interviewed by The Times said the shooter was a man.

“This is an active situation,” said Azusa Police Chief Steve Hunt, adding it’s too early to determine whether the violence was in any way related to the election. “It’s very early to tell what the motive is, but it appears to be concentrated on the residential side, not at the polling station,” Hunt added.

At least one of the victims was headed to the polling station to vote, a law enforcement source told The Times. Officers arrived about 2:02 p.m. in the 300 block of North Orange Avenue to find multiple shooting victims and a man with a rifle. The gunman immediately fired at least 20 shots at police, said the source. Under a hail of gunfire, officers took cover and returned shots at the man, who retreated into a home in the 500 block of Fourth Street, said the source, who requested anonymity because the case was ongoing. No officers were injured in the shooting. LA Times

5:07pm  pst   CBS projects Hillary Clinton winning in Illinois.

5:05pm pst  Here are exit poll results from Virginia (CBS News):

The majority of female voters in Virginia say they voted for Clinton (57 percent, versus 38 percent for Trump) while males favored Trump (49 percent for Trump, versus 44 percent for Clinton).

The vote among whites, according to exit poll results, favors Trump (56% percent), while Clinton gets the vast majority of support among blacks (89 percent). Of white non-college graduates in Virginia, support is split: Clinton wins 50 percent and Trump takes 45 percent. Among white college graduates, Clinton has more early voters (56 percent, versus 37 percent for Trump).

Among Independents, the vote is split: Clinton and Trump each win 44 percent.

Clinton gets the majority of support from the younger Virginia voters (18- to 29-year-olds), with 53 percent of the exit poll voters favoring Clinton (versus 34 percent for Trump).

–CBS News

5:03pm At 8:00 p.m. ET polls  closed in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee.

CBS News projects Clinton wins in Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, and D.C.

CBS News also projects Trump wins in Tennessee and Oklahoma.

5:00pm pst Despite Clinton’s Big Lead in Philadelphia, the Race in Pennsylvania Remains Close

VoteCastr’s models currently show a tight race in Pennsylvania, with Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by roughly 125,000 votes as of 6:25 p.m. EST. That’s good for less than a three-point lead for Clinton, 47.7 percent to 45.1 percent, in a state Barack Obama won by more than five points over Mitt Romney four years ago.

4:55pm  As we await further closures of the polls, it may be useful to scroll down and view some of the headlines, stories and photos posted here since 9 a.m.

4:52pm – Patty and I just voted at our local polling station. Never have seen a line before and several provisional ballots filled out. With our sample ballots already filled out – it was fairly quick.

4:11pm pst  Trump projected winner in Indiana, Kentucky; Clinton takes Vermont;  Donald Trump is projected to win in Indiana, collecting 11 electoral votes there, according to the Associated Press.  Trump was also projected to be the winner in Kentucky; Hillary Clinton won in Vermont.  Washington Post

3:29pm – Doug Porter lists headlines from rightwing news sources – “Here’s the latest news from the Flat Earthers and despicables”, he says (no links provided):

3:23pm PST  Clinton holds lead in Florida in latest VoteCastr projection update; this was updated: 6:07 p.m. E.T.  Vice News

Florida:

93.9 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 48 percent
Trump: 45 percent

3:19pm  A new report from HuffPo;

A group backing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump revealed plans on a Monday night conference call to post anonymous reports online of so-called “voter fraud” and conduct unscientific exit polls in predominantly minority neighborhoods in Philadelphia and eight other cities.

“We are not intimidating people,” Andy Dion, an organizer for Stop the Steal, insisted on Monday. “We are not voter intimidation. We are conducting a fair and equitable process of determining that there was a just vote. So remember that.”  Stop the Steal has no official ties to the Trump campaign, but it’s the brainchild of Roger Stone, an infamous political “dirty trickster” and one of Trump’s oldest friends in Washington.

More than 3,000 volunteers registered to conduct “neutral, scientifically based and methodically sound exit polls” at “certain targeted precincts” on Tuesday, Dion said on the Monday call with volunteers. As of Tuesday afternoon, The Huffington Post was unaware of any reports of those volunteers being accused of actual voter harassment or intimidation.

3:15pm pst – the first polls are closing. … Polls in the Eastern time zones of Indiana and Kentucky were the first to close, and a flood of vital battleground states such as Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio – where polls were due to close in the next 90 minutes – would provide initial clues of the possible winner.  Kentucky is certain to go for Trump – as has been predicted.

3:10pm – Voter systems temporarily go down in Colorado. A number of voter registration systems were down across Colorado on Tuesday, from 2:47 p.m. to 3:16 p.m. MDT, according to a local official of the secretaries of state, which monitors issues in local polling stations. It is unclear, said the official, how many counties were affected, or what caused the problem. All systems, said the national secretaries of state office (NASS) are currently up and running.

3:02pm – Donald Trump keeps up his threat to not accept election results. From Politico –

… the Republican nominee continued to voice a potential refusal to accept the election results, should he be declared the loser, questioning the integrity of the presidential contest even before it was complete.   “We have to see how it is,” Trump said on Fox News, “and hopefully everything is going to be on the straight and up.”

Trump’s declaration, made after he voted in Manhattan on Tuesday and in separate radio and television interviews, added fresh drama to an Election Day already full of it, as control the White House and Senate were on the line, with the latter resting on the outcome in a half-dozen toss-up races.

“There are reports that when people vote for Republicans the entire ticket switches over to Democrats,” said Trump, who plans to watch the returns roll in with his family at Trump Tower. “You’ve seen that. It’s happening at various places today it has been reported.” He later tweeted, citing a report about problems in Utah.

2:55 pm PST – From North Carolina, we receive this report: As of 4:17pm ET:

The NAACP reports that, early this morning, “the North Carolina State Board of Elections instructed the Durham County Board of Elections to use paper poll books instead of electronic poll books. This abrupt change led to some voters being turned away from certain precincts this morning and in some precincts throughout the day.” According to the civil rights organization, the problem has since been rectified.

The Durham Board of Elections petitioned the State Board to keep Durham’s polls open an extra 90 minutes in light of the fact that voters faced difficulties earlier. According to the NAACP, without North Carolina’s voter suppression law, HB 589, “County Board would have been able to extend the hours to address this situation without approval of the State Board.” The State Board has not yet responded to press queries about its planned course of action. Alternet

2:50pm  Mic Porte sent us this: Official “Pantsuit Power” Flash Mob for Hillary on Vimeo

She added: Here’s a fun video for an elemental power moment, for Election Day, or night, from a forever dancer

2:48pm – OBcean Lauren Zerweck (with her pooch Milo) proudly voted today. (roaming South OB GIrl)

2:44pm Meanwhile in Philly …

– PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — After a morning of surging turnout, poll workers at several north Philadelphia voting sites said that vote counts had ticked back down to around 2012 levels, or slightly higher, by the late afternoon. The high voter turnout in the morning, before work, was a sign of enthusiasm, said Robert Chalmers, a 73-year-old committeeman in north Philly’s 32nd District. He expected that after-work voters would match the effort. Some sites saw their high morning turnout continue into the afternoon.

At six of 14 polling locations visited by BuzzFeed News, poll workers said that vote counts were 50 to 100% higher than they were on Election Day afternoon in 2012. But whether that reflects a higher overall turnout or simply people choosing to vote earlier in the day remains to be seen, they said. Al Schmidt, one of the city’s election commissioners, told BuzzFeed News that the city had not had any major problems with allegations of voter fraud or intimidation. While he won’t know the vote count until after the polls closed, he said it “seems like heavy turnout.”  Buzzfeed

2:41pm Here is a map of the states that Clinton and Trump are expected to win.

2:38pm – No, There Aren’t Voting Machine Problems Across The “Entire Country” As Trump Claims
“No. Utah officials reported machine problems across one entire COUNTY, not the entire COUNTRY.” Buzzfeed

2:34pm – SAN DIEGO COUNTY — Registrar of Voters Michael Vu said that as of late morning on Election Day, there were no major problems at polling stations. More than 7,500 poll workers opened about 1,500 poll locations in the county at 7 a.m., including at the registrar of voters office in Kearny Mesa. Vu said there were long lines at the registrar’s office on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but there was no waiting on Election Day. Vu predicted voter turnout for San Diego County would be anywhere from 72 to 75 percent by the time the election is certified. PatchSanDiego

2:30 pm PST 2 Broward County poll clerks sent home – plus voter with gun cited for battery

Lines remained short, Trump v. Clinton voter tensions flared, ballotless absentee voters fumed, two Broward County precinct clerks were fired and a Lake Worth voter with a legally concealed weapon was cited for battery as Election Day wound toward an end Tuesday.

Deputies were called to keep the peace when a dispute between poll workers erupted at the Herb Skolnick Community Center in Pompano Beach, a Broward Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman said. As a result, two poll clerks, who work for the Broward Supervisor of Elections, and two volunteer poll watchers “had to be let go,” said Tonya Edwards, spokeswoman for the elections office.

“[The poll watchers] had to be let go because they were interfering with the voting process,” Edwards said. “And the clerks were not adhering to the procedures set forth by our office, so they had to be let go.”

David Booth, one of the fired clerks, said concerns over an elderly woman and her assistant were blown out of proportion. The poll workers raised an issue, Booth said he explained to them that elderly voters are allowed to have a designated helper in the polling booth and as far as he was concerned the matter was resolved. Sunsentinel

2:28pm – These are the 18 state legislative chambers to watch that could change hands in 2016. Daily Kos

2:24pm – Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson had canceled his visit to San Diego yesterday. Instead, the former New Mexico governor will speak to supporters through a pre-recorded video. The campaign rally begins at 6 p.m. at the House of Blues in downtown San Diego.

2:20 pm – Joyce Awramik was a proud American voter today. At the OB Rec Center. She stocked up on “I Voted” stickers in several languages. Nice OB t-shirt too. (hat tip to SOG)

2:18 pm PST – Polling places around OB. South OB Girl says: “Only time I’m happy for an open door
at 1818 Sunset Cliffs.” That’s the OB mortuary on Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

2:03pm – From Slate

1:30 pm PST – Nevada Judge Tosses Trump Poll Closing Lawsuit – the Daily Beast

A judge in Nevada turned down a last-minute appeal by the Trump campaign to preserve evidence for a challenge the campaign filed with the Nevada secretary of state. Alleging that ballots were cast illegally during the early-voting period in a heavily Latino county, the challenge is seen as an attack on Latino voting and could be used if the campaigns wants to claim that the election was rigged. Mother Jones

12:37 pm – Donald Trump Is Booed Loudly at His Polling Place; The GOP nominee received an icy welcome from his fellow New Yorkers when he cast his ballot. Alternet

12:10 p.m.  The latest VoteCastr data from 8 swing states – Updated: 2:20 p.m. E.T. from Vice News

Florida

74.9 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 49 percent
Trump: 45 percent

Colorado:

72.2 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 47 percent
Trump: 42 percent

Iowa:

55.9 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 45 percent
Trump: 46 percent

Wisconsin:

47.9 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 49 percent
Trump: 43 percent

Nevada:

58.7 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 47 percent
Trump: 44 percent

Ohio:

59.8 percent of expected total voters
Clinton: 46 percent
Trump: 45 percent

Pennsylvania

45.9 percent of expected total voters
Hillary: 48 percent
Trump: 44 percent

What it means: More than half of expected voters have already cast their ballots for president, and Hillary Clinton is on track to win key swing states barring a huge surge of Trump voters late in the day, according to VoteCastr’s model.

12:05 p.m. PST The clerk of Ingham County says a man in East Lansing attempted to keep two hijab-wearing women from casting ballots at their local polling place this morning. Mother Jones

11:57 a.m. From OB Rag roaming reporter, South OB Girl:

Ray Blavitz has been at the poll at St Peters by the Sea on Sunset Cliffs Blvd in OB since 5:30 this morning. And he expects to be working there as a poll worker until about 9:30 PM. He has been a poll worker for about eight years. Caught Ray on a quick break from working the polls.

11:34 a.m. Who’s turnout out the most voters in New Hampshire?

11:29 a.m. PST from Slate.com

11:21 a.m. The Clinton campaign reports that Trump supporters are blocking polls and intimidating voters at polling places in Coral Gables, Florida.

11:02 a.m. Here’s a timeline of election results and what and when to expect them (from Columbia Journalism Review):

Here’s a rundown of what will be available, and when, on Election Day.

Timeline (EST)

12 am     Cable news outlets, such as Fox News and CNN, have already begun live, rolling election coverage that will continue until 4 am Wednesday.

5 am      First polls open in Vermont, followed by the Eastern states, and then the rest of the country. Exit pollers report for duty at polling stations in select counties.

8 am    Slate.com begins publishing the VoteCastr live modeling of voter turnout and breakdowns in seven battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Nevada based on voter turnout and pre-polling information.

9 am  Vice begins streaming VoteCastr’s effort live on vicenews.com from Vice headquarters in Brooklyn.

5 pm  Exit poll data, provided by Edison Research, becomes available to the National Election Pool (NEP), which is comprised of the Associated Press, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC.

Exit poll data is collected via random samples throughout Election Day by pollsters based at approximately 1,000 polling stations around the country, who expect to survey about 85,000 people. However, due to clustering in the type of people who agree to participate, exit poll data, taken alone, is generally considered inaccurate for projecting election outcomes.

6 pm  First polls close in some counties in Kentucky and Indiana.

As the polls close, more than 4,000 Associated Press stringers around the country collect votes from county election centers throughout the night. Those results are phoned into a Vote Entry Center where they are tabulated and verified before being distributed to newspapers, broadcasters, and websites throughout the country.

Once enough data becomes available, news organizations begin projecting results in presidential, senate, house, and gubernatorial races. This year that information is available in more formats than ever before. CNN for example, will not only be reporting results via more than 100 hours of live TV coverage and on its website and mobile apps, but also via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Kik, Line, Discover, and Apple News, among others. BuzzFeed will be live streaming on Twitter.

Poll closing times in battleground states:

7 pm  Last polls close in Virginia, New Hampshire

7 pm  Last polls close in North Carolina, Ohio

8 pm  Last polls close in Florida, Pennsylvania

9 pm  Last polls close in Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin

10 pm Last polls close in Nevada, Iowa

1 am  Adak, Alaska is the last county in the country to close polls

4 am  The Associated Press and other news outlets cease live coverage, to resume the following day.

10:59 a.m. PST – The Trump campaign files a lawsuit against the Clark County, Nevada, registrar, alleging that polls were kept open “2 hours beyond .. closing time” against the rules during early voting. Mother Jones.

10:56 a.m. Check this photo out of Trump and Melania voting in NYC. What’s your interpretation?

10:53 a.m. 9 States Are Voting On Marijuana On Election Day. Here’s Where They Stand Right Now. From HuffPost

10:33 a.m. New York Times advises: How to Spot and Report Voter Intimidation

10:30 a.m. Mother Jones reports:

On a press call with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is running the National Election Protection Hotline, advocates reported a number of concerns.

Florida: They reported the presence of “aggressive” individuals hovering around voters who approached the polls outside the Hollywood Public Library in Broward County. They also noted a presence of an “unauthorized” individual at a church polling place on New Kings Road in Jacksonville (a majority-black neighborhood) who was asked to leave the polling place and refused. And there have been reports of people yelling aggressively, some on bullhorns, outside a polling place in Miami-Dade County.
Missouri: Advocates reported the presence of police at a polling place at a St. Louis elementary school. Legal volunteers were dispatched, and the police left the school.
North Carolina:  Advocates related reports of broken electronic voting machines across Durham County on the morning of Election Day.

10:28 a.m. Washington Post reports: Election Day: Voters report long lines, intimidation and confusion in some parts of the country

10:23 a.m. The San Diego U-T reports on early voting in the county, and that “over a half-million San Diego voters have already cast their ballots.”

Of the 1.6 million voters, just over 500,000 have either returned their mail ballot or stopped by an early voting site to support their choice for president, ballot measures, candidates for Congress and state and local offices.

Democrats go into Election Day with an advantage. County election officials said around 197,000 Democrats, 182,000 Republicans, and 108,000 independent voters have returned their mail-in ballots. Another 17,000 have voted in person at the Registrar of Voters office in Kearny Mesa, but their party affiliation was not available.

The county estimates that between 350,000 and 400,000 ballots will be counted by the time polls close on Tuesday. The results will be kept secret until polls close, but will be posted online shortly thereafter, giving a hint of how some races are unfolding. The county said these will account for approximately 30 percent of all votes cast.

10:20 a.m. Over at the San Diego Free Press, we have “A Note To Those of You Who Think There is No Difference Between Clinton and Trump”

10:00 a.m. From the Daily Kos:

Daily Kos Elections final presidential forecast: Clinton 323 electoral votes, Trump 215

Over the course of this presidential campaign, Daily Kos Elections has logged 1,371 state-level presidential polls into our database. All signs point to a Hillary Clinton victory.  Our forecasting model indicates that Clinton is highly likely to win key states including Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In all five of these states, Clinton has never trailed in our average of the polls—and if she carries all of them, she would win the election over Donald Trump with 273 electoral votes, three more than the 270 required for victory. In addition, our model also favors Clinton in Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada. Together, those states contribute another 50 electoral votes.

That gives us our final prediction: Clinton 323 electoral votes, Trump 215.

9:58 a.m. Hillary wins Dixville Notch, NH 4-2 Source: CNN; 8 total votes

4 Hillary
2 Trump
1 Johnson
1 Romney

Hassan-Ayotte 4-4

9:51 a.m. Donald Trump ended his presidential bid Monday the same way he started it nearly 19 months ago: with an overtly nationalist message and the swagger of a New York City billionaire. Wall Street Journal

9:47 a.m. Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone says, “After This Election, Turn It Off”

9:38 a.m. Of course there’s no returns yet. But if you have questions about where to vote, when, etc. see this great post by Anna Daniels with all that info.

9:30 a.m. This Alternet post from yesterday: Early Voting and Final Polls Suggest Women and Minorities Will Propel Clinton to Victory – so we’ll see if it’s true.

9:00 a.m. This is finally it – Election Day, 2016! This is the historic day where American voters have a final say in the Presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The OB Rag will be live blogging all day – from now until enough votes have been counted nation-wide to determine the winners.

We’ll be watching the electoral vote totals – 270 needed – and the popular vote totals. 40 million Americans had already voted by day’s end yesterday.

We’ll also be watching the returns from several states on the eastern seaboard, states like Virginia, North Carolina and New Hampshire – to get a sense of how many voters are turning out.

And of course, we’ll be looking at local and California races.

We’ll try to keep a close watch on any voter intimidation efforts by pro-Trump forces, as well, as he urged his supporters to come down to the polling places in mainly minority neighborhoods to ensure only “Americans vote.”

We’ll be checking in with a variety of news sources, progress and mainstream media platforms.

And we encourage our readers to come on and make comments, give us your observations, and share feelings about the election.

Our most recent news accounts and comments will be on top of this all-day column.