They're off: Long lines of voters greet the day
Presidential candidates to meet with supporters
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 Posted: 1848 GMT (0248 HKT)
Sen. John Kerry arrives Tuesday to cast his ballot in Boston after an early rally.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) - Polls opened early Tuesday to long lines of voters - some of whom had camped outside overnight - waiting to cast a ballot in one of the most tightly contested presidential elections in recent history.
The candidates President Bush and Sen. John Kerry prepared to wait out the long day of voting and what could be a long night of ballot-counting. President Bush cast his vote in Crawford, Texas, this morning at the Crawford Fire Department near his ranch. He entered the polling place with first lady Laura Bush and their two daughters. (Bush votes in Texas, to watch returns at White House)
After spending less than five minutes there, Bush emerged and told reporters he was confident in the judgment of the people and said "I believe I'm going to win." Bush later appeared in Columbus, Ohio around noon to greet party activists and volunteers for his campaign. "I'm confident we'll carry Ohio and we'll carry the nation," he said. "I'm looking forward to leading the nation for four more years."
Strategists from both parties agree that the election will hinge on turnout. Both have invested heavily during the campaign in get-out-the-vote efforts (New voter signups could make history). The Democratic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry , who started his day with campaign events in Wisconsin, voted at the State House in Boston about 1 p.m. Afterward, in a personal Election Day tradition, Kerry planned to have lunch at the city's Union Oyster House. (Kerry plans get-out-the-vote rally)
Kerry kept campaigning Tuesday, starting his day with events in Wisconsin. Asked by a reporter what his thoughts were now that the campaigning is finished, Kerry replied, "It's not over yet -- still working until 8 p.m. tonight." Bush is seeking a second term as the 43rd president of the United States. Kerry is seeking to become the 44th president following a 20-year career as the junior senator from Massachusetts.
Sunrise voters
As polls opened on the East Coast, sunrise found lines of voters at polling places from Georgia to Michigan to Maryland. Twelve states opened Election Day polling places before 7 a.m., The Associated Press reported. The mountain hamlet of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, followed tradition as one of the first municipalities to count and announce vote totals. The tiny community with 26 voters gave Bush 19 votes to Kerry's 7. Independent candidate Ralph Nader received no votes in Dixville Notch. (New Hampshire)
Fifty miles away in Hart's Location, the vote was tighter - 16 for Bush, 14 for Kerry - and Nader got on the tally board with one. New Hampshire election law allows polls to close once all eligible voters have cast ballots. Alaska, meanwhile, laid claim to being the state that will be the final one to close its polls, which it intends to do at 1 a.m. EST Wednesday.
In Ohio, efforts by state Republicans to have challengers at hundreds of polling places appeared to be on again after U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens let stand a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing the challengers. On Monday, two federal judges prohibited the challengers. Republicans took the issue to the Court of Appeals and from there it moved to the Supreme Court. Republicans had planned to send about 3,600 challengers to polling places, after losing court battles to challenge some 35,000 registered voters before the elections after mailings to the voters came back as undeliverable. State GOP officials said the challenges were an effort to thwart voter fraud.
An African-American couple in Cincinnati, Ohio, filed suit, saying plans to have challengers at polls in largely black precincts is meant to intimidate and block black voters. Early Tuesday, officials in Ohio's Stark County said they had some "overzealous" campaigners, but no serious problems. Columbus police also said a crude flier telling Republicans to vote Tuesday and Democrats to vote Wednesday was apparently distributed in some areas.
Race tight going in
CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls over the weekend indicated the race was evenly split between the two candidates - and was so close in some showdown states that an electoral victory was impossible to predict. To win, a candidate must pick up 270 votes out of the 538 in the Electoral College. There are 14 states, representing 151 electoral votes, that remain competitive and have received the most attention from the two campaigns.
The top three battleground states are Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, with 68 electoral votes. A second tier of closely watched states includes Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota with 27 electoral votes. Special attention will be given to Florida, in which the 2000 election took an unprecedented turn. The results were so close that recounts held up the presidential election for five weeks.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the recounts. Bush was declared the winner in Florida by 537 votes. The result gave him 271 electoral votes to 266 for the Democratic candidate, Vice President Al Gore. (One District of Columbia elector left her ballot blank to protest the district's lack of statehood.) Polling in the showdown states suggest a similarly close election is possible again.
Congressional races
Although the top draw of the election is the presidential race, voters across the country will have plenty of other decisions to make. The Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-48 edge over Democrats and one independent, could change hands based on Tuesday's results. Overall, 34 races are being contested, with tight matchups in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota. If Kerry is elected president, Massachusetts will hold a special election in the spring for his Senate seat.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, including 36 open seats. Democrats would need to pick up 12 seats to gain control of the House. A bout of redistricting in some states has made the prospect of Democratic victory a long shot. Republicans won control of the House in 1994 for the first time in about 40 years. There are also close gubernatorial races in Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire and Washington.
