Here in Illinois, we had a primary election Tuesday night. And it was, to put it mildly, a nailbiter.

As I write this at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, we still don't know who the nominees for governor are. Nor do we know the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor or the Democratic candidate for comptroller.

All this led to an exciting night for our Illinois newspapers. I'd like to show a couple things in particular that some of them did to help put this mess into perspective.

Two of our papers accomplished the same goal in a different way. The Peoria Journal Star put up a graphic on the front page of its Web site that gave election numbers at a glance -- not just statewide races, but also local races of big interest. The graphic included a link at the bottom to full election results.

In Rockford, the Register Star packaged all of its election stories together, giving readers a chance to find everything in one spot. The main story is the governor's race, but all the local stories are packaged in the sidebar, making it easy for readers to find their local races of interest.

One Illinois paper in particular, the (Springfield) State Journal-Register went all-out on election coverage. Being the paper of record in the state capital, the SJ-R covers state government and politics heavily and provides statehouse coverage to other GateHouse papers in Illinois on a daily basis.

In addition to stories on statewide and local races, the SJ-R also used CoveritLive to keep readers updated throughout the night. The reporters covering the statewide races provided regular updates and answered questions from readers throughout the night.

In addition to that, the SJ-R did a video analysis at the end of the night featuring its political columnist and its statehouse bureau chief. On Wednesday, the paper packaged everything together, including a replay of the live blog, so readers can get a more in-depth look at the races.

All in all, we had great coverage from our papers on an uncertain election. Nice work all around.

GateHouse News Service Illinois Regional Editor Casey Laughman can be reached at claughman@gatehousemedia.com.