The historic nature of Barack Obama's election was not lost on Republican Bruce Wesbury when he woke up yesterday morning. He decided to mark it by... fixing his shower.

"Life goes on," Wesbury said, taking a break from his shower remodeling to chat with a reporter. "I'm just relaxing. Actually, just doing some plumbing."

Wesbury, the finance chair of the Republican Central Committee in Charles County, spent most of the last two months campaigning for Senator John McCain in Pennsylvania and Virginia -- two places McCain actually seemed to stand a chance of winning. The full-time commitment kept Wesbury busy -- so busy, in fact, that he couldn't find time to remodel the shower that "just didn't look good."

With McCain's loss, however, Wesbury's schedule has opened up. He was laid off from his job at a picture frame company a few months ago, just in time to devote all his energies to the McCain campaign. So what will he and other Republicans do now that the campaign is over?

"I slept in this morning," Wesbury said. "Had a great night's sleep."

And after that?

"Obama's got a lot of promises to keep, so that will keep us busy," he said. "Two more years, and nobody to blame but the Democrats."

-- Matt Zapotosky

In Upper Marlboro in Prince George's County, the nation's wealthiest black jurisdiction, many lapels at the county government building yesterday sported Barack Obama buttons. A security guard and custodian flipped through of a copy of the Washington Post together. "I'm going to keep this," the guard exclaimed.

A regularly scheduled county council meeting that drew about 100 people kicked off wth a speech by chairman Samuel H. Dean (D-Mitchellville), with a montage of photos of President Elect Obama displayed on a big screen behind his head.

Dean told the crowd he "could not be more pleased by election results," and the audience broke into vigorous applause.

County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), addressing a group of residents joining citizen committees, recalled his youth in rural South Carolina. "I'm just so excited," he said. "Yes, yes," exclaimed some of the residents.

Johnson, who grew up in rural South Carolina, said that when Obama's picture was displayed on television with the notation "the nation's 44th president," an "indescribable feeling" went through him.

"It was like someone had shocked me," he said.

Johnson, 59, remembered his childhood on Wadmalaw Island, S.C., where he had worked in the fields, attended classes in an antiquated all-black schoolhouse, and was barred from many jobs, even sdriving the local bus.

The first white South Carolinian he met, Johnson said, was in Takoma, Wash., while he was serving in the Army. "South Carolina was as divided as South Africa. It was an apartheid system...To see how everything has unfolded -- the restaurants opened up to us, the University of South Carolina started admitting black students, hspital boards now have black members, but oh, my God, the presidency says so much about how far we have come."

Johnson said he spoke Tuesday night with his daughter. The two discussed that Johnson's grandson who will turn 2 in December, will spend his earliest years knowing only a world in which the country is governed by a black president.

As polls close at 8 p.m., here's a guide to our online coverage tonight of the election in Maryland:

* We'll track the ballot referendum to amend the state constitution to allow slot-machine gambling at five locations. Staff writers John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman will update their story as returns roll in. Click here to read their story.

* We'll look for county by county trends in the presidential race. Will Sen. Barack Obama carry reliably Democratic Maryland by a big margin? Check the Maryland Moment blog for updates throughout the night.

* We'll track early returns in Maryland's eight congressional races, focusing on the 1st District, where Republican Andrew P. Harris and Democrat Frank M. Kratovil Jr. have been locked in a close matchup to succeed moderate nine-term Republican Wayne T. Gilchrest. The hotly contested race in a district that spans the rural Eastern Shore and some Baltimore suburbs, is the state's most closely watched. Gilchrest, who lost to Harris in a bitter February primary, crossed party lines and endorsed Kratovil, a county prosecutor on the Eastern Shore. Harris is an anesthesiologist and three-term state senator from Baltimore County. Check the Maryland Moment blog for updates throughout the night.

* We'll bring you results to local ballot measures. In Prince George's, voters considered a measure to raise the tax on telephone bills to aid the county's public schools budget. In Montgomery, voters were asked whether to make it more difficult for local leaders to exceed a local tax cap, which ties annual property-tax increases to roughly the rate of inflation. Voters also filled school board seats in Montgomery, Howard and Calvert counties, among others. Check the Maryland Moment blog for live updates.

* We'll also continue to bring you scenes from at polling places throughout the state, as well as reaction later tonight as a winner emerges from this epic presidential campaign. Post reporters are stationed throughout the region. Check the Maryland Moment blog for more.

* As always, we welcome your comments on this historic election night.

The polls are open until 8 p.m., so you still have one hour to get in line to vote.

-- Philip Rucker

Just hours before polls closed at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, volunteers from both parties huddled under umbrellas as they handed out sample ballots and other information to voters.

After long lines this morning, a steady stream of voters came through the polling place through the afternoon and into the evening, poll workers said.

"People around here like to get up early and get things done," said Patrick Twomey, 54, who voted with his wife, Lisa, after work.

The Twomeys both voted for Sen. Barack Obama because he represents "hope and a change," said Lisa Twomey, 51.

"He's the first politician who has inspired me since I was a kid," Patrick Twomey.

The couple also both voted against the slots referendum because of the social repercussions of gambling and the profits machine owners would make.

"I don't like gambling," Lisa Twomey said. "I guess I just don't see a point in having it."

Douet Lyn, 45, said she "raced along the Beltway" to get to the polls from her job in North Virginia. A native of Jamaica, she said she voted for Sen. John McCain because of his campaign's anti-abortion stance.

"I'm not from here, so I value freedom and justice, because I did not have that in Jamaica," Lyn said. "When I vote, I look for someone who feels the way I do."

-- Jenna Johnson

Lorraine Bell had been planning for some time exactly what she would do should the day ever come that an African American would be in the running for president. She would bring with her a receipt for a poll tax her grandmother had paid in 1937 in Mississippi for an election that she was too frightened to vote in.

Today, on a long-awaited and "exhilarating" day, Bell finally had that chance.

She and her family arrived at their voting precinct in Bowie around 7:30 a.m. They would wait in line for two hours to cast their votes for Sen. Barack Obama. And just before the line snaked its way into the building, Bell and her two grown daughters held aloft the faded and yellowing poll tax receipt and posed for a photo.

"It was very emotional," Bell said. "We felt that not only were we voting for ourselves, but we were voting for my grandparents and for all the African Americans who were ever denied the vote."

The receipt is made out to Bell's grandmother, Georgia Bardley, for $3.00, and signed by the Knoxubee County, Mississippi sheriff. Bell grew up with stories of poll taxes and literacy tests and how her grandfather, despite being an educated schoolteacher who was often asked to help white teachers prepare for exams, was never able to vote.

"They paid their poll taxes. They took whatever tests they had to, but they never could vote," Bell said. "The family owned a farm and a store and I think they were intimidated. They were afraid someone would come and burn down the store if they voted."

After her grandfather's death, the family moved to St. Louis. And though her mother never had a problem voting, Bell was taught early on never to take it for granted.

"This is an historic election," she said. "There's a sense of great price. A sense of hope that race relations in this country are changing. We definitely believe in Barack Obama's message of hope and unity. And the fact that we were able to vote for him today is evidence of how far this nation has come."

-- Brigid Schulte