It is a great feeling to vote

Election day is always an exciting day, particularly when you can vote, and so it was this morning that I was the second person in line at my polling station to vote in my city's election.  Now civic politics are somewhat out of the intended scope of this blog, but in many ways I actually prefer them to federal or provincial politics.  They are non-partisan, more consensual than confrontational, counsellors are free to express their own views and vote accordingly, and they are more responsive to their constituents   It is too bad we can't have a little more of that in other levels of government.

The presidential election tightens

I wish I had time to write more about the U.S. election, it has been an interesting campaign.  Obama's small but consistent lead throughout most of the year had been growing prior to the first debate.  Then a disastrous performance by Obama suddenly allowed Romney to, at least momentarily, pull ahead, and since then the race has been much closer with national polls nearly even and Obama with a slight edge in the most important states.  Huffington Post has a feature where you can embed their poll tracking graphs, which I am going to use here.  This is the national poll tracker:

As you can see, it has nearly been more or less a tie since October 5th.  But Obama still has a slight advantage in the majority of the important swing states, including Ohio which is the state most likely to determine the winner:

Obama has a clear lead of two and a half percent.  While Romney could win without Ohio, it would be very difficult.  He is looking pretty strong in North Carolina and Florida right now, but would also have to win Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and either Wisconsin or Nevada, and neither of the last two look promising for the GOP candidate right now.  Still, anything is possible at this point.  A higher or lower than expected turnout for one of the candidates, flaws in polling or a last minute shift in the polls could make for an unexpected result.