Excited about the election? We're excited, too - and a little nervous.

Sure, we've covered big elections before, but this one will be a little different. It's the first presidential election since we converted from an afternoon to a morning newspaper.

What's the difference? Well, about 10 hours - which, in the news world today, is huge.

Back in the old days - prior to February 2005, when we became what we in the business call an a.m. - we had lots of time to put out a really big newspaper filled with election charts and analysis.

The polls close at 8 p.m. Local election results, at least in the computer era, are available by 10 p.m., provided there are no virtual ties or other glitches. As an afternoon paper (a p.m. in our lingo), we went to press at 10:30 a.m., which gave us 51/2 hours to print the newspaper, add inserts and deliver them to carriers who then brought them to your doorstep by 4 p.m. - our guaranteed delivery time.

The newsroom would hum all night in those 12-plus hours leading to press time. We'd order pizza or Chinese food, and brew up gallons of coffee. Reporters would have until mid-morning to not only report the results, but write analytical pieces about why a candidate had won, why the voters decided to pick this candidate or that, and what impact it would have on our area.

And if it was a presidential election, the winner would generally be known by about 2 or 3 in the morning - except, of course, for 2000, the election that wasn't finalized for weeks.

As a result, a.m. papers wouldn't have the new president - but we would.

Now, we - and nearly all American newspapers - publish in the morning. We are now able to put our newspapers in stores early in the morning, making copies available to you throughout the day. But it shortens our press time to 12:30 a.m., 10 hours earlier.

And that should make for an exciting night/morning on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Although TV networks may announce at 8 p.m. that a candidate has won in Massachusetts, they're basing their projections on exit polls. But it takes an hour or two to actually count the votes, so the winners of local races - we have, for instance, five state legislative races this year in the 10 communities we cover - aren't known until all votes are counted in all the towns that may make up a state senator or representative's district.

That takes until about 10 p.m. (We get calls every year, right at 8, from readers wanting results, but the truth is not a single vote has been counted yet, and the last voters may still be in the polling places, because the doors don't close until 8.)

What we've done this year is shifted virtually the entire 30-member staff to night time, enabling reporters to work on just one story rather than several as in the past. Everyone will pitch in to digitally put stories and photos on the pages (pagination is what it's called). And we'll have a couple of people devoted strictly to the Internet, updating our Web site with local, state and national results as often as possible.

The big question, of course, is when we'll know the next occupant of the White House. We'll extend that 12:30 a.m. deadline a little, and we can change pages, so that some editions get the final results. But we have only so much time to get your newspaper printed, inserted and delivered to you at a reasonable hour (our guaranteed delivery time is now 6 a.m.) Who am I rooting for, McCain or Obama? Either one, as long as I know by 12:30.

MIKE KIRBY is editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached

at 508-236-0344 or at

mkirby@thesunchronicle.com.