I spent yesterday watching the election results. I mean all day yesterday. I had CNN, election coverage from Twitter, and MSNBC all up at one point, going back and forth and trying to figure out why twitterers were declaring states CNN wasn't touching (which was why MSNBC; but the total population vote was more accurate on CNN. Click . . . click . . . click . . .). At one point I froze my browser, trying to go back and forth too fast between too many updating pages. And yet when the decision was made, my state was totally left out.

See, I'm from Oregon. On the Left Coast. So, just when I was getting excited about finally seeing what my local senate candidates and measures were doing (when our polls closed), everybody started jumping up and down and declaring who won the Presidency. At eight PM sharp. And the CNN Your Races window that I had so lovingly configured to show my senate and congressional races suddenly disappeared. It didn't just stop working -- there was a blank space in my window. Like, "We figured out Obama won, and after that who cares what's going on?" I was so frustrated that I tweeted, "The moment our polls close, everybody calls it. Could we get some counting time? Pretend we matter? -- Oregon Voter 8-/" It was as close to the rant I wanted to send as I could get in 140 characters.

I mean, I'm not miffed that they assumed we're blue. Of course we're blue! We're Oregon, for Pete's sake! But could we at least get a runner along the bottom with our stats, NBC? (Yes, I was allowed to put the TV on near the end. I got to watch Obama's speech, and I'm ecstatic that I got to witness it in real time.) Could we get 2 minutes for the locals to run a series of text screens on our local candidates and measures? Something? Anything? Nothing. 1 1/2 hours of pundits, that's what I got. Thanks.

It gets worse. I woke up in the middle of the night, as usual, and tried to find updates on our local stuff. The page for my favorite station had a page of links (and different pages for races and measures), meaning that to get at all of them would require constant clicking and alt-<--ing. Ick. I googled "oregon election results," and found a page that just had the tables with the races and measures, the votes and %precincts reporting. I found it at the New York Times. With my 100 results per page, I wound up discarding all the local options and wound up on the east coast to get my local election results. How sad is that? I'm jealous of my friend in SF -- sfgate.com has a wonderful page that automatically updates with all the stuff right there. (I was watching Prop 8. BOO!!) Could I find something like that here? Not a chance. Our big paper has a contract with another company to put its stuff on the web -- you can't even comment on the stories! I tried once and got a huffy "We are not the paper" autoresponder. Phooey on them! (And their page was nothing but links too.) Somebody has a lot of catching up to do on the Internet around here . . .

So, to sum up: Could we please figure out a way to get the Left Coast a little recognition, a little time to actually do something? Could we at least pretend that we have candidates and measures over here that matter? And could someone figure out a way to haul this state into the 21st century so that we can have some access to the numbers in real time, in a place that's easily findable? I don't think that's too much to ask.

End of Rant. I actually feel a bit better now. Thanks for putting up with me! [I did actually have a positive experience on Election Night -- I just woke up channeling pissed Republicans and hung-over Democrats when I wrote this. I wrote something much more positive in my LiveJournal.]

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