Watching Tuesday's returns****
When you watch the election returns tomorrow, you can bet the networks and cable news shows will be scrambling to be the first to call each state and the election itself.
It could have repercussions in California, where a high turnout is seen as a key for a number of measures _ particularly those involving spending.
Which is why so many of the campaigns fear an early call on the presidential election, which could depress turnout here in the west.
So, what many will be looking at is how and when the returns come in tonight and which candidate gets to 270 electoral votes.
Here is a time line for when the votes will be coming in and what the experts are looking at:
The first results will start trickling in after 3 p.m. PST, when parts of Indiana (11 electoral votes) and Kentucky (8), begin to come in.
Full results for both states will come in at 4 p.m., along with (most of) Florida (27), Georgia (15), South Carolina (8), Vermont (3) and Virginia (13) come in. Most experts believe Virginia is the key state. If Sen. Barack Obama wins it, it is expected he will win by a landslide. If it goes to Sen. John McCain, it could be a long night.
In either case, that adds 66 electoral votes.
By 4:30 p.m. PST, North Carolina (15), Ohio (20) and West Virginia (5) will have their votes cast. Ohio is considered the key state in this batch. That's another 40 electoral votes.
At 5 p.m., another 198 electoral votes will be decided with Alabama (9), Connecticut (7),Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Illinois (21),Maine (4).Maryland (10).Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17) Mississippi (6), Missouri (11). New Hampshire (4).New Jersey (15)Oklahoma (7), Pennsylvania (21), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11) and Texas (34).
At 5:30 p.m., Arkansas (6), comes in.
At 6 p.m., votes from Arizona (10), Colorado (9), Kansas (6), Louisiana (9), Minnesota (10), Nebraska (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Wisconsin (10) and Wyoming (3), will come in. Those account for 102 electoral votes.
At 7 p.m., Iowa (7), Montana (3), Nevada (5), North Dakota (3) and Utah (5) comes in, adding 23 more electoral votes.
At 8 p.m., California (55) closes its polls, as does Hawaii (3), Idaho (4), Oregon (7) and Washington (11). That accounts for 80 electoral votes.
And, at 9 p.m., Alaska (3), comes in to close out the election.
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The Huffington Post has a very cool color map that will provide a running count on the returns.

Los Angeles Daily News City Hall reporter 

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