Here: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/closing.phtml?format=gc

They will start posting numbers for a state when each state closes.
Not all states have to be closed before the closed ones start sending out numbers.

But we in Alaska almost always know who the winner is before our polls close.

I win

Bet with my husband.

What I said is the networks agreed to not post exit polls in a state until the polls in that state closed. They did not agree not to post results from the East coast until polls close in all states.

they called Obama, President of the United States within minutes of the polls closing on the west coast. Polls close at 8:00.

when Reagan was declared the winner well before polls closed on the West Coast, the networks now do not call the race until the West Coast states have had their polls close.

I also believe there was a time in the '70's when exit polling allowed the race to be called quite early, although I don't believe a race was ever called before the polls closed until 1980.

I also understand that in 1992, exit polling allowed the Clinton campaign to know that they had won the election pretty early in the day, well before any polls had closed.

But as to announcing the results to the rest of the world, there is a gentleman's agreement these days not to do so.

Hawaii and Alaska do not count in this equation, unfortunately for them. But it would be extremely unlikely circumstances that would make their electoral votes crucial.

because a lot of people in Alaska see no point in voting for president at all for that very reason. We have some very important state elections this time around that will probably bring a lot of people to the polls, but we are under no illusion that our presidential vote makes one little bit of difference.

Perhaps the only solution would be instead of having all those separate poll closing times, there were a 24 hour period for voting, that starts say at 6am on the east coast, ending 24 hours later, at 6am also on the east coast. Or maybe 6pm to 6pm. Others can work out the exact best times.

But then, so long as the 24 hour voting period is identical across the entire United States, and the times given only reflect the local times, then all polls would end at the same time. So people in Alaska and Hawaii wouldn't feel so disenfranchised.

I've experienced this on a different level. I used to live in Kansas, and I truly hated it that because of the Electoral College nonsense, my vote for a Democratic President simply didn't count in a state that was going to go for the Republican nominee. Republicans in a mostly Democratic state would feel the same way. If we went to a straight popular vote, each and every vote would really count, no matter where you lived. More of us would get visits from the nominees and their surrogates. I suppose there would also be more advertizing on TV in all states, but since I don't own a TV I never see any political ads except for what Rachel shows me, so I don't give a flying fuck about that.

Which brings me to a short talk about television. Kill your TV. It's the best thing you could possibly do for yourself.

won re-election . . . or both

A 'brouhaha' is a kerfluffle, a dust-up over something that may in retrospect seem not very consequential but that seemed important at the time it happened.

The west coast results just made his election official, but everyone knew it was over before the polls closed.

Polls on the west coast close at 8pm (11pm eastern).