Voters in the United States are heading to the polls today to elect a new Congress. Here’s a quick roundup of who’s up for election.

The whole US House of Representatives is elected every two years, so all 435 seats are up today. In addition, a third of the 100 seats in the US Senate are in play (for six-year terms), as are over two-thirds of state governorships across the country and various seats in state legislatures.

Currently, the Senate is made up of 45 Democrats (including retiring former Republican Senator Jim Jeffords, an Independent who now caucases with the Democrats, and Democrat-running-as-Independent Senator Joe Lieberman) and 55 Republicans. The House of Representatives has 201 Democratic Congressmen and 229 Republicans, plus 1 Independent (Bernie Sanders, representing Vermont’s at-large district, who caucuses with the Dems and is standing down to run for the Seante) and 4 vacant seats (the New Jersey 13th, a Democratic seat vacated by the new senator; the Florida 16th, which belonged to Republican Mark Foley; and the Texas 22nd and the Ohio 18th, both vacated b Republicans in relation to the Jack Abramoff scandal). The states have 22 Democratic governors and 28 Republicans.

The race for the Senate is currently too close to call. Of the 33 seats up for grabs, only 13 are currently Republican, making a Democratic advance harder. Lieberman has said he will caucus with the Democrats if he beats Ned Lamont, and Bernie Sanders, though running as an Independent to succeed Jeffords in Vermont, is backed by the Democrats. There are a number of pickup opportunities for the Dems, but many of them are all close races: in Rhode Island, Missouri, Montana and Virginia, with an outside chance in Arizona and Tennessee. In addition, the Democrats are on the defensive in Maryland and New Jersey. They can at least be pretty sure of taking Pennsylvania from Senator Rick Santorum, the sort of legislator who would be a funny joke if we wasn’t, well, a legislator.

With the whole House in play, it is likely the Democrats will take a majority of seats, although so many races are too close to call that the Republicans have a tiny chance of holding on if every one of those and one or two more go their way.

Of the 36 governorships being contested today, 22 are currently Republican. Democrats need to make a net gain of four governors to have a psychologically significant majority, and current polls suggest they will surpass that, helped by a number of states where the Republican incumbent is standing down. The most likely Democratic gains are the open seats in Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio. No Democratic seats are showing Republican poll leads, but in the unlikely event there is a loss it’s most likely to be in Iowa (where Tom Vilsack is retiring), Oregon or Wisconsin.

Doctor Who viewers may remember London landmark Alexandra Palace from such episodes as The One In The 1950s With The Angry Dad And Maureen Lipman, also known as The Idiot’s Lantern, a David Tennant/Billie Piper episode from earlier this year. The show may have been filmed in Wales, but, through the magic of modern technology, Alexandra Palace plays a central role.

The first public television broadcasts were made from Ally Pally seventy years ago so the studios there, which were used for decades subsequently, have great historical importance. Unfortunately, as the building prepares to change hands, although there is provision for a museum, there are no specific protections for these studios.

Local LibDem MP Lynne Featherstone is campaigning to protect these historic studios. She recommends that anyone interested in saving the studios lobby the Charity Commissioners who are consulting on the proposed lease. See Lynne’s blog for details.

The American administration has done some dumb things, along which invading Iraq stands tall. Although the President declared “Mission accomplished” soon afterwards, it’s fair to say there are still a few sceptics on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the US Government’s plans to win people over was to release onto teh internets a host of Iraqi documents that predated the invasion. They hoped that the internet people would help to translate these and would come across something incriminating that would retrospectively prove their war justified.

Unfortunately, according to the New York Times, in their haste, they managed to put online information on how to build an atomic bomb.

The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the Web site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.

Good work, guys. The West is saved once again. (Via dKos.)

Gavin reports John Kerry’s Monday faux pas. The US senator was trying to make a cheap gag at the expense of President Bush, but mangled his words and ended up sounding like he was criticisng the intellect of the troops in Iraq rather than the idiot who sent them there. The Republicans, of course, seized on this, accusing the Vietnam veteran of not respecting those serving. Kerry is having none of it. Here’s his marvellously robust response in full:

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

“I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

“The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

“Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”