Looks like a big celebration in Simferopol right now.

[Comrade Grumpy]

The polls have closed. Thousands are in Lenin Square waving Crimean and Russian flags. CNN International is covering it.

Results to be announced shortly. There should be no surprises.

[alsame]

1. 93%

http://news.yahoo.com/93-percent-voters-crimea-back-union-russia-state-181858673--finance.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - About 93 percent of voters in Ukraine's Crimea region supported union with Russia on Sunday, Russian state news agency RIA quoted an exit poll as showing.

Polling stations in Crimea closed at 1800 GMT. Another Russian news agency, Interfax, said voter turnout had exceeded 80 percent.

The exit poll cited by RIA was conducted by the Crimean Institute of Political and Social Research.

[Igel]

2. They're using the new, revised census numbers.

Or saying a lot of Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians voted to join Russia.

Too bad. Yanukovich may have to spend time in Crimea instead of in his new $52 million house in the outskirts of Moscow. Poor guy--a true man of the people, having to slum in a 3-story English-style house.

At least so says Sobesednik, a Russian media source.

Then again he can afford to stay in nice digs when he goes to Ukraine. (What a lot of average Crimeans did, renting out rooms to visitors, is illegal when a new law goes into effect in a few weeks, so they don't have to worry about riff-raff on the naberezhnoe in Yalta. Some hotel organizations are pushing for this kind of law in some states in the US, as well.)