 Good evening and welcome to BU TV and BU News Services live-streamed election night special Decision 2012 the polls just closed in Massachusetts and our election night coverage begins right now online and on TV I'm Matt Reed and I'm Victoria Price every half hour until our 10 p.m. Special will be bringing you the latest numbers from the presidential race as well as the fight to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives Didi Sun is standing by in our newsroom where editors and students alike are working in the launch of our multimedia website BUNewsService.com Didi over to you. Thanks Victoria there are a lot of people working with me here in the newsroom tonight to bring you that coverage as you can see we have journalists who are blogging writing live tweeting you name it we got it all to bring you the latest we'll be speaking with some of them here tonight so tune back within tune back in with us in just a bit now meanwhile let me explain to you how this is going to work tonight the map as you can see is largely gray and blank so far but we do have two states in for Mitt Romney that's Kentucky and West Virginia eight votes for Kentucky five votes for West Virginia and three votes in for Obama in Vermont and so keep in mind that the magic number is 270 270 electoral votes to win the presidency tonight and so the states in question we have Ohio and Florida the candidates have been spending a lot of time in Ohio campaigning this week spending millions of dollars and that's because there are 18 electoral votes that could go to either party so far and that's all we have for now back to you guys in the studio. Thanks Didi right now I'm joined by our senior analyst Tom Fiedler former Miami Herald editor and dean of the BU College of Communication Dean Fiedler you've covered many presidential elections how often is it that you see a candidate lose his home state as we think that we're going to see Mitt Romney lose Massachusetts tonight Well it's not it's not often but it's not uncommon George McGovern in 1972 who lost 49 states he won only Massachusetts but he lost his home state of South Dakota and Al Gore lost Tennessee in the 2000 election had he won Tennessee he would have been the president of the United States so it's not unprecedented but it's unusual and perhaps even a little bit embarrassing Now of course here in New England we're not looking at Massachusetts we're looking at New Hampshire a lot of both the candidates had last ditch efforts in New Hampshire this weekend were those efforts in vain do you think they did something in swinging independent voters what are your thoughts Well you can never tell I think that's why both candidates go back you don't want to leave anything on the table so and in an election as close as this one is even New Hampshire where this four electoral votes could make the difference particularly for Mitt Romney so he clearly didn't want to take it for granted and the other reason why you do that is you need to energize your volunteers right up until the last minute you've got to show that you're expending every ounce of energy that you have What indicator should we look for to see how tonight's going to play out I think what we ought to do is look at the states first of all that Governor Romney needs to get to win first and foremost we've got to look at Virginia they're already starting the count there if Governor Romney doesn't win Virginia it's going to be very very difficult for him to actually get the electoral votes he needs and then Ohio of course is the one that everybody's been looking at that that could be the linchpin on which this turns but I think first look at Virginia and also look at way young people are voting I'm so sorry we're short on time thank you so much we've come back to you later in the evening Matt I'm going to send it back to you at the desk and we'll begin back live at 8 30 with more on this decision 2012 on our be your TV news service coverage during the next two hours we'll have the numbers and results as voters bring along an expensive campaign season to an end we have some breaking news in to the news when we're going to go look at a graphic as it is coming on screen right now and it has to do with the state right next door to us Barack Obama has in fact one new Hampshire getting its four electoral votes all right wonderful Kelsey thank you so much we'll be checking in with you in just a little bit Kelsey has been following the Obama campaign for decision 2012 she caught up with John Walsh chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party to learn about their efforts not just here in mass but in neighboring New Hampshire as well let's go get a new answer thank you after supporting many campaign events in New Hampshire this election the Massachusetts Democrats wait to see if their efforts in this neighboring swing state have paid off Democrats in Massachusetts for many years understand that we lend a hand to our friends up north Obama visited New Hampshire just two days ago in one of his last efforts to rally the state for support BU TV's Justin Bork was out there this morning to bring us the story GOP nominee Mitt Romney arrived to the polls this morning to cast his ballot in one of the tightest presidential races in U.S. history it was a short-lived moment for Romney who resumed a grueling final stretch of campaigning with last-minute stops in Cleveland and Pittsburgh I've got a clinical message for you and that is America is about to come roaring back I'm sitting down with BU professor and NECN special correspondent Artie Sol Artie thank you so much for joining us this has been an extraordinary race two billion dollars when all is said and done on the presidential race and Mitt Romney was right forty seven percent will not vote for him the companion part of that is that something like forty seven percent will not vote for Barack Obama either two billion dollars for six percent of the vote concentrated in eight or nine of the so-called battleground or swing states let's speak with some other members in our newsroom she is a third year grad student she works with BU news service hello hello Marie so this is our newest website it's the BU news service dot com that the grad thesis class has been working on all semester so as you can see though we have an interactive map which is the graphic that you've been standing behind all night we have an abundance of articles we have a photo ticker that will if you click on it you can get our latest features if you'd like to tweet with us you can add BU news service you can also hashtag BU news and that'll show up on our ticker right here Suffolk University polls says that fifty five percent of Massachusetts residents are in support of ballot question number three the medical marijuana initiative while highly opposed by law enforcement officials supporters of question three insist the benefits outweigh the costs BU TV's Inside Boston takes a look into the measure if question three does pass as many as thirty five dispensaries could open statewide in the next year one of the first arguments supporting the legalization of medical marijuana is that it will help patients with medical issues cope with the suffering from their illnesses let them spend five minutes in my shoes and how did they tell me I don't have the right to be paying free Massachusetts ballot question the initiative for medical marijuana has passed by a large margin Elizabeth Warren has won the Senate seat in Massachusetts beating the incumbent Scott Brown and you're looking at the graphic right now we're going to take you live right now to Elizabeth Warren who's at her headquarters this victory belongs to you you did this Death with Dignity is just one of the three hotly contested ballot questions in this election and advertisements have argued both sides fervently BU TV 10's news magazine show Inside Boston takes a look at the controversial issue the purpose of the Death with Dignity Act is to give dying patients who find their suffering no longer bearable the option of hastening and inevitable death for some family members seeing their loved ones struggle moves them to advocate question two like Lewis Cohen whose mother-in-law Myra Burzov recently passed away she developed emphysema became oxygen dependent and her world kind of shrunk but for others the death with dignity act is not an option opponents of the act are concerned that patients must self-administer the drug with no doctor required to be present they would be cheated out of if you know in that moment when they're in agony we simply ended their life we're now joined by Justin Bork who is at the Romney headquarters Justin what's the response announced when Obama had won Massachusetts well Matt if the Romney headquarters over here is disappointed about the Obama winning Massachusetts they sure aren't showing it there's definitely still a lot of energy over here they're still staying very positive I actually talked to a GOP staffer earlier today in Delmont where Romney was voting who said that they honestly never expected to win Massachusetts Decision 2012 reporter Joe Lyman takes a look at how recent Massachusetts nominees have fared in the race to the White House and why regrets over the past dozen presidential elections candidates from the state of Massachusetts certainly have some some great moments unfortunately I blew it in the end too bad as I say to people I owe you all an apology if I had beaten Bush one you'd never heard of Bush two we wouldn't be in this mess candidates from Massachusetts have not been elected to office since John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 breaking news this is really really big President Obama has just taken swing state Ohio the candidates have been spending a lot of time in that state over this past week millions of dollars one statistic shows that they've been they've been running 333 ads per day in Ohio it's very interesting that Ohio was the main factor in this election many people have debated whether Ohio is actually the biggest swing state there are so many there's Nevada there's New Hampshire there's Pennsylvania but Ohio was the deciding factor for this one but we're sitting back again with our senior analyst Tom Fiedler when Barack Obama got elected in 2008 it was the first African American president to be elected president this was also a first election this was the first time an incumbent had been reelected with unemployment higher than 7.2 it's currently 7.9 is that in itself a very impressive feat? well actually it is because again the conventional wisdom would have said that no one would be able to win re-election with those kinds of numbers he had economic headwinds that were stronger than any other president seeking re-election had ever done in your opinion what could a Mitt Romney have done differently that maybe we'd be talking about him right now instead of Barack Obama there's always talk about in October surprise in an election this year it was a November surprise November 1st when Hurricane Sandy hit and I think if you look very very closely at the polls Mitt Romney's momentum which was moving very very positively for him in fact some showed that he was actually pulling ahead of President Obama it ran into a wall right about the time that Hurricane Sandy hit two of our reporters Alexa Dragumas and Joel Sinek who are studying Washington DC this semester went to the Department of Employment Services to talk to people who are out of work and what needs to be done to get them back into work here in the district unemployment is almost a full percentage point higher than the national average of 7.9 percent I don't have any income other than that the retirement check that I get and what does that cover as a matter of fact I was unemployed for six months after having 42 years experience in the construction industry with unemployment rates still high both candidates are promising to fix the economy in the next four years here in the nation's capital on election day many are hopeful that their candidate will be able to solve this crisis right now you're looking at footage live from the Obama and the Mitt Romney headquarters in Chicago and Boston obviously the side on the right looking a little more somber than the one on the left so despite Barack Obama having 290 20 more electoral votes and he needs to secure the presidency Romney is still saying he's not quite ready to concede this is due in part to a lawsuit in Ohio regarding a form on a ballot again we kind of spoke about it earlier the Republicans will still can hold the House of Representatives and the Democrats will hold the White House and the Senate are we back to kind of where we started you know if we rerun the clock six o'clock we kind of began where we left off that could be very dismaying for a lot of people if we end up stuck with the same kind of battles something has to break the log jam has to break we're headed toward the so-called fiscal cliff President Obama has a powerful club in his hand because if he does nothing all these tax inquiry the old Bush tax cuts disappear I think that should that should cause people to make a move for our BU TV live stream special Decision 2012 this is an unprecedented collaboration here at Boston University's College of Communication more than 100 students were involved reporting through articles blogs tweets video news reports radio spots and photographs you name it all about the election today