While we wait for results to come in, I thought I’d find some good political interactives.  First stop, of course is NY Times.  Check out their cool Dashboard for monitoring returns as they come in. And, if you go to their Multimedia page, you can see all kinds of great presentations that have to do with the 2008 campaigns. They have a nice chart that shows how different presidents over time have dealt with the problems of the economy (Can a President Tame the Business Cycle?) Oh, NY Times, why don’t you have the Multimedia link on your top nav bar? It’s the best part of your Web site.  On their home page, they do have links to cool things about the election, like this graphic visualization of words that come to mind associated with this election.  “Hopeful” is a big one.  Looks like Obama’s PR was successful. But, people are also excited and anxious. And, they have compiled a lot of their election resources into an Election Guide. They have really done an amazing job engaging technology during this campaign.

MSNBC has an election widget that you can use to watch results. Here’s their Dashboard. They’ve got maps, videos, quizzes, and coverage as it comes in.

It’s a big day in Washington, so you’d expect the Post to have some good tools. Here’s their Election Guide.  They’ve even got some mobile tools, can post race calls on Twitter and news alerts via email and sms.

And, NPR has a nice Election Guide as well, with Interactive Map and lots of articles.

Yahoo News has an Election page, but I have to say the traditional media sites seem to be the ones to watch this election. They seem to have organized their resources and experience and engaged the new technologies in very interesting ways. Like everyone else, though, Yahoo seems to have their own Dashboard for results. Which sites did you use? Find the most helpful.

If you are following on Twitter, there’s an Election 2008 section that they are filtering, basically what everyone is thinking/doing/seeing this election day.  You can also follow @austinvotes and @streetteam08 (that’s MTV’s Choose or Lose team, go @mairalg!) .  @austinvotes put up a good pic of the results of 1 million kids 6-12, how they would have voted.

Things are pretty quiet on the candidates’ sites. Barack Obama has a map of polling locations.  McCain has this very cheesy music video on his social network site (winner of worst effects in a music video, even for the Web; look for video of unofficial campaign song).

And, here’s something fun. Jorge Sanheuza-Lyon is streaming live during election day for the Statesman via Ustream.tv.

Never have there been so many ways for you to participate in the process. But, make sure you participate in the most important way. VOTE!

Share your favorite Web sites for Election Day.