The U.S. presidential election results have been quite a bit of a surprise to me; I was expecting a landslide victory for Kerry, considering the amount of animosity felt towards Bush by everyone.

But reflecting more deeply on this, I think I relied too much on the Internet to serve as a barometer of public opinion (even after considering that Americans are probably one of the most wired folks on the planet). It could also be that I was only seeing one side of the story, since I tend to avoid pro-Bush sites generally.

A person who doesn't spend much time online would have a consistent world-view; whatever he/she has been reading in the newspapers and watching on TV (i.e. the candidates are neck and neck, things are too close to call, etc.) would have been affirmed by the election results.

BTW, why do only Ohio's provisional votes matter? What about the provisional votes from other states? Is it because the margin of difference between Bush and Kerry is larger than the total provisional votes in other states?

I think the Democrats not thowing in the towel is more of a gesture to their supporters, to show that they are still fighting. Unless more than 75% of the provisional votes in Ohio go to Kerry (seeing that the race is so close, this is probably pretty much impossible), we are in for another four years of Bush (shudder).

BBC's online coverage of the election is fantastic, BTW. It's Flash-based, with a lot of information (going back till the 1948 elections).