How the U.S. election is playing out online

Polls and prediction markets show Barack Obama a clear winner

(This post will be updated periodically throughout the voting day. So be sure to check back. Last update: 4 pm)

From FiveThirtyEight.com to Hubdub, it looks like the polls and prediction markets are forecasting the same thing: Come January 2009, we'll be referring to Barack Obama as Mr. President.

On November 4, Americans (well, besides the ones who already voted from home) will go to the polls to elect the 44th president.

On FiveThirtyEight.com, the popular polling site, Obama has 348.6, up two points from the last update earlier today, vs 189.4 for John McCain. On RealClearPolitics, Obama has 278. The candidates need 270 electoral votes to win.

Taking a look at the prediction market sites, the results are the same.

On Hubdub, Obama has a 91% chance of winning, down from a high of 95% earlier, but up from 90% yesterday. On News Futures, the probability of a Democrat being elected soared to 95%, up from 89% earlier. On InTrade, McCain contracts have been sinking, hitting 5.9 Tuesday while Obama contracts stand at 94.2.

Prediction markets do not work like polls. The percentages represent forecasts of the likelihood of a candidate winning, and not how many electoral votes they win.

There's been some question of the accuracy of polls and prediction markets. Well, it doesn't look like this election is going to give either process a leg up on the other. 

For those who'll be watching how the U.S. election is playing out online, rather on TV, here's some places to go.  You can go to CNN Election Center and Fox New's America's Election HQ's for the latest. And, for ambient noise about the election, the best site is Twitter's election site. For an aggregate view of Twitter posts and what the Tweets say about the election, go to setfive Consulting.