Also, I focused only on the Florida count, as that's what I thought Fearless Perl Commando meant. (Yes, that's his title at EDC.)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use LWP::Simple;

my ($c, %d, @o) = get("http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/FL/ind
+ex.html");

for ('Bush', 'Gore') {
     if ($c =~ m!$_</a>.+?dPercent">([0-9,]+)!s) {
         ($d{$_} = $1) =~ tr/,//d;
     }
 }


@o = sort { $d{$a} cmp $d{$b} } keys %d;
my $d = "$o[1] leads $o[0] by @{[($d{$o[1]} - $d{$o[0]})]} votes!";
$d = "It's a tie!" if $d{$o[1]} == $d{$o[0]};
die unless open(I, "vote.log");
@o = <I>;
$_ = $o[-1];
exit if (/$d$/);
select O if (open(O, ">>vote.log"));
print (localtime() . "\n$d\n");
exit if !(open(A, "addresses"));
my @a = <A>;
die "No sendmail!" unless open(S, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -t");
print S <<E;
Subject: Vote results as of @{[ ''. localtime() ]}
Bcc: @{[@a]}
$d
E
[download]

Update: Hmm, what's the proper balance between error checking, graceful degradation when CNN changes the page format, and Doing the Right Thing with as few errors as possible? This would make a good Discussion.

/msg me your thoughts.