Top searches on Election Day (part 3)

The long, long election campaign season culminated today as people made their choices on hundreds of statewide and local contests as well as the race for the next U.S. president. We've kept an eye on Google Hot Trends to decipher what may be meaningful, as well as searches that are "business as usual" on Google. This is the third and final update for today. - Ed.

As of 12 am EST:

If we count the search queries relating to the commercial breaks on election night TV coverage, the entire list of the 100 fastest-rising terms on Google Hot Trends reflect a passion about today's events. As polls closed and the presidential race was called after 11 pm EST for [president obama], people searched for outcomes on state races of interest, such as [al franken senate race], [massachusetts question 2], and [proposition 8] in California. Obsessive viewers noted that cameras captured a sign in Times Square that seemed to say "[cassoulet forever]" (which is odd; it's a classic French country dish), and they were intrigued by CNN's use of [hologram technology] to show non-local notables like musician [will i am] appear on the set with Anderson Cooper.

Even when looking ahead to entertainment after a marathon post-election season, Americans can't stop pondering politics just yet. Two of the top 100 at this hour are for upcoming films [valkyrie] (the true story of an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), and [frost nixon], a dramatic re-telling of Richard Nixon's 1977 TV interview with David Frost. Both films were promoted during commercial breaks in wall-to-wall coverage tonight.

Finally, eager voters (presumably of all persuasions) seem to be looking forward to a new era of [obama jokes].

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Elections team