Yesterday afternoon, internet traffic was so massive that TalkLeft and other sites became almost impossible to access.

Hosting Matters, the company that hosts TalkLeft and hundreds or thousands of other blogs, was there to help. I don't know what they did, but beginning around 4pm yesterday afternoon, we were as fast and easy to access as ever. We never went down once, despite receiving double our normal traffic.

Thanks to Annette and Stacy, and everyone else at Hosting Matters, for realizing that E-day was the main event to bloggers, and for keeping us all up and running.

Confirmation on both NBC and CNN: Kerry has called Bush to concede. Kerry's concession speech will be at 1 p.m. ET from Faneuil Hall in Boston. At 3 pm, Bush will give his victory speech.

What a sad day for America.

Bush claimed victory early today, Kerry says he won't concede until all the Ohio votes are in.

Bush got two big lifts: one from the "latino" vote (CNN's term)--he got 40% of this voting block as compared to 35% in 2000.

The other: Karl Rove got out the evangelicals. When you hear about this block, it will be in terms of the "value voters," shorthand for voters with values.

New Mexico won't finish counting until tomorrow - too many absentee or provisional ballots.

Some networks are blasting blogs for publishing exit poll results. Just another sign that blogs have arrived.

'A long night, but we've waited four years for this victory we can wait one more night!

'We promised you that every vote would count and every vote will be counted. We will fight for every vote. You deserve no less."

Beautiful. Just what I wanted to hear. Now I can go to sleep.

I'm calling it a night. It's a cliff hanger. Disappointing but it's not over. Bring on the lawyers. Just heard that David Kendall, Clinton's lawyer from the impeachment trial, may be in put in charge. He's a terrific lawyer and would be a great choice.

The owner of the Boston Red Sox has his private plane ready to go to take the lawyers to whatever state they need to go to.

Bad news. Gov. Arnold just announced that Proposition 66 lost in California. So if your third strike is stealing a piece of pizza, you can still go to jail for life.

For the first time, CNN has called a state "Green." Green means it's too close to call. And we won't know for 11 days.

CNN says there are 387,000 actual votes not counted plus up to 250,000 provisional ballots out. So it's too close to call. Bush is only 100,000 votes ahead.

Ohio has a recount law. It's automatic if the parties are within .25%

Send your support to John Kerry....let him know you don't want him to give up until every last vote in Ohio is counted.

The campaign saved $45 million for post-election challenges. Smart thinking.

Laurence Tribe, constitutional scholar and Gore 2000 lawyer is on CNN. Provisional ballots are human beings who went to the polls and were told that their ballots would not be counted for some reason. Congress passed a law after 2000 and said these votes should be counted unless they were improperly cast, in other words, unless the voter was not really eligible to vote.

So it's not legal challenges as much as its about counting every ballot. Unless John Kerry wins after the provisional ballots are counted. Then the other expert, Boyden Gray, says Bush might sue to have the votes recounted.

[typo edited, incorrect "Bush lawyer" now changed to correct Gore lawyer.]

CNN just called Michigan and Minnesota and Hawaii for Kerry.

249 to 242-- 270 needed.

Wisconsin still out. That should go to Kerry.

Iowa and Ohio. A long ways to go.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is on CNN and says the provisional ballots have not been counted and won't be counted for 11 days after the election. That's the law in Ohio. No totals for 11 days. The overseas ballots have not been counted either.The absentee ballots have been counted.

Blackwell agrees there could be 250,000 provisional ballots as the Kerry camp says. He won't estimate the number of military ballots.

92% of the vote is in, there is about a 100,000 vote lead for Bush. Blackwell says, if the number of votes that separates the candidates is less than the number of provisional ballots, everyone should take a deep breath. So, take a deep breath. Kerry is right to wait.

Ken Blackwell is one confident Secretary of State. Hope his star rises after this. Even though he's a Republican.

Washington State now in, 11 more electoral votes, CNN has it at 249 for Bush to 211 for Kerry.