Empire State Building to Be Real-Time Beacon of Election Results

If you're tired of watching political pundits discuss the closing polls and analyzing who is winning as the votes are counted for the presidential election, cast your eyes upon the Empire State Building or Rockefeller Center's "Democracy Plaza."

The New York City skyscraper and CNN collaborated to give a visual of the electoral votes based on a vertical "meter" of LED lights. Naturally, GOP candidate Mitt Romney will be shown in red and Democratic candidate Barack Obama in blue. According to the CNN Press Room, this is the first time the lights in the spire, a custom lighting system by Philips Color Kinetics, will be used. CNN will be airing video of the building's light show as the night continues.

(Image: CNN)

When an overall winner is projected by the network the lights will go all-red or all-blue. Update: here's the Empire State Building with Obama as the winner (below).

(Image: Instagram/doree via Business Insider)

The announcement points out this is also not the first time the building has been used to announce a presidential win. It was illuminated in 1932 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a New Yorker himself, was announced as president.

"Democracy Plaza" (Image: RockefellerCenter.com)

NBC too has taken over Rockefeller Center's ice rink, turning it into "Democracy Plaza," where the rink displays the 50 states and each state will turn the color of the party to whom the electoral votes are allocated.

(H/T: Gizmodo)