Election 2012: Live updates

The CT will be updating this page throughout Election Day as updates are available. Oldest updates will be at the bottom

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 Update: 2:30 a.m. Students take to the street in celebration of Obama victory

A crowd of mostly VCU students march in the streets after Obama victory. – Photo by Ryan Murphy

Ryan Murphy

News Editor

Hundreds of VCU students and Obama supporters flooded the streets of Richmond after major news networks began calling the 2012 election in Barack Obama’s favor around 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 6. A crowd gathered at the intersection of West Broad and Shafer streets, traffic was stopped and chants of “four more years” and “two terms” were audible for blocks around.

Students storm Broad St. aft er the election was projected. Photo by Amber-Lynn Taber.

The crowd, led by students bearing a huge Obama/Biden campaign sign, proceeded to march down the street, east on Broad, through Monroe Park, through nearby neighborhoods and even through the Cabell Library.

Along the way, VCU Police, Richmond City Police and Virginia State Police stopped traffic and tried to direct the crowd to keep it near campus. There are currently no reports of injuries or arrests, and a broken window on North Pine Street is currently the only known damage caused by the crowd.

The group chanted pro-Obama slogans and marched for over an hour and a half before finally dispersing. Along the way, they stopped in Monroe Park twice, once congregating at and climbing on the little-used security building near North Laurel Street.

Police worked to control and maintain the crowd. Photo by Amber-Lynn Taber.

As of now, returns from the Virginia State Board of Elections are indicating that Obama has edged out Romney in the state despite the Republican challenger taking a lead early in the evening. At press time, 30 precincts, or just over one percent, still hadn’t reported.

As the night wore on, highly-populated areas in Virginia with high voter turnouts were forced to keep polling places open late, which delayed reporting from Democratic-leaning areas like Northern Virginia and Norfolk. Romney’s advantage, at one point around 10 percent, diminished to nothing until Obama finally pulled ahead, right around the time that major news networks like CBS and CNN called the overall election in the president’s favor.

 

Attendees of the watch party react to hearing the projected winner. Photo by Brooke Marsh.

 

Update 9:48 p.m.: Update from the Commons

The crowd swells just before 10 p.m. in the Commons Theater as students gather to watch election results tallied.

Update 9:48 p.m.: Update from the Commons
Liz Butterfield sends along these photos from the Commons. The top image is a ballroom showing feeds from MSNBC. Below is an image from the Fox News Ballroom.

VCU students one of the Ballrooms in the Commons watch a feed from MSNBC on Election Night. – Photo by Liz Butterfield.
VCU students one of the Ballrooms in the Commons watch a feed from Fox News on Election Night. – Photo by Liz Butterfield.

Update 9:31 p.m.

Students gathered around anxiously in the GRC Common Room to see who would win the presidency. The majority of the students were for the Democratic Party, hoping President Obama would be re-elected. – Photo and text by Grace Douglas

Update 9:23 p.m.: Another Report from VCU’s Student Commons, courtesy of The CT’s Assistant News Editor Liz Butterfield

“All I ask is that you please use a napkin if you grab a slice,” shouted Trashun Floure to a crowd of hungry students. Floure is the social chair of VCU’s National Pan-Helenic Administrative Council. The NPAC teamed with the VCU Student Commons to support tonight’s election watch party event. The Commons provided dozens of pizzas and sodas for party goers while the NPAC served as the chief organizer.

Coordinator for student programming Mary Bramley said that between 300 and 500 students are expected to come to the watch party event tonight, with about 400 participating right now. Bramley suspects the event may have slowed down, in part due to the end of the pizza supply, but expects another rush sometime after classes let out at 9:40 p.m.

This is the first watch party jointly sponsored by the NPAC and the Commons and is expected to be a big event, said Floure, a senior and elementary education major. Senior psychology major Ashley Stewart is the student supervisor from the NPAC and remembers the crowded watch party that the Commons hosted in 2008. “It gets really packed about 10 o’ clock,” said Stewart.

Organizers are unsure of how many students will turn out for the watch party, but are hopeful that the rooms they reserved will fill up later in the evening when more exit poll announcements are made.

Stewart thinks the event is important and exciting for students.

“(The event) Gives students a chance to come together and be aware of what’s going on,” said Stewart. “It’s a positive event.”

Update 8:40 p.m.: With over 43% of precincts reporting in Virginia, Romney has a commanding ten percentage point lead, but that may be deceptive – polling places in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia are still reporting lengthy waits, and no precincts from Norfolk have reported. Richmond is reporting 22 of its 69 precincts and shows Obama leading with 69.63% of the vote to Romney’s 28.55%.

Update 8:17 p.m.: 28.17% of precincts reporting in VA shows Romney way up, but a lot of Democratic strongholds still not reporting.

Update 7:52 p.m.: The CT’s Katekyn Boone reports on what’s going on in VCU’s Student Commons right now

The students have filed in, board games have been brought out and the pizza has just arrived at an Election Night Watch Party at the Commons. Two ballrooms are filled to the brim with chairs, and the commons theatre is filling up! The media audio can be heard reverberating throughout the halls, and a chuckle went through the ballroom as Virginia was announced “Too close to call…”

More to come as the votes come in and the pizza disappears at the Commons.

Update 7:09 p.m.: Early exit polls by CBS say Romney and Obama split the VA electorate on harsh demographic lines – 63% of white voters went to Romney, 94% of black voters for Obama. Romney leads slightly with male voters and Obama slightly with females. Women make up 53% of the electorate while white voters make up 70%, says CBS.

Update 7:09 p.m.: Polls are now closed. Those in line by 7 p.m. will get to vote. Preliminary calls are giving Indiana and Kentucky to Romney, Vermont to Obama. Romney leads in electoral votes 19 to 3. We will be monitoring the VA State Board of Elections website to bring you information about key counties as they report their tallies.

Update 6:47 p.m.: If you are in line at 7 p.m., you will be allowed to wait and cast your vote.

Update 6:01 p.m.: Go Green Pedicab Ferries Voters Charles Locke, a co-owner of Go Green Pedicab has spent the better part of the last four hours giving voters rides from the heart of the Monroe Park Campus to their polling places. He said that usually he and his partner use the pedicab to “ferry drunks home from the bar” on Thursday, Fridayand Saturday nights for a fee, but today, there’s no cost to ride.

Charles Locke and his business partner have been personally biking their pedicab to assist people in getting to their polling locations throughout the day. Photo by Amber-Lynn Taber.

“Today, for my man Obama, I’ll do it for free,” Locke said. “Especially since I haven’t done much campaigning, I thought I’d make up for it with this.”

Locke described both himself and his partner as “rabid democrats” and said they had at least made a difference for one undecided voter and two voters who were lost and didn’t know where their poling place was.

Update 5:20 p.m.: Waits at the Carver Middle School, Retreat Hospital and Dominon Place are short now, but a rush is expected between now and when the polls close at 7 p.m. as voters get out of work. The Main Library on Franklin St. has a fairly lengthy line. Volunteers at both Retreat Hospital and Main Library say that computer outages early in the morning caused delays, but things seem to be running smoothly now.

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Update 3:44 p.m.: Reports of computer outages and lengthy waits at polling places in Richmond circulated on social media this morning, but now, all seems quite and turnout remains steady at many Richmond polls, which will close at 7 p.m. EST.

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Update 2:21 p.m.: We’ve seen and heard a lot of complaints online and at the polls about people having issues with registrations not going through. The CT is investigating and will bring you the latest.

Voters wait in line outside of Dominion’s Place this afternoon. Photo by Amber-Lynn Taber.

Update: Between about 12:30 and 1:30 today, the line was long but moving at Dominon Place on Grace Street. Waits of between 10 and 15 minutes reported.

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The CT asked some first-time voters what they were looking forward to this Election Day. Click-through for information about each voter check back for more throughout the day.

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