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Americans wait hours to vote Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=amF9UBsj1Ops&refer=top_world_newshttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=amF9UBsj1Ops&refer=top_world_news
Americans Wait Hours to Vote; Record Levels Predicted (Update3)
Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Voters around the country, undeterred by 90-degree heat in Florida and steady rain in Ohio, waited for hours to select the next U.S. president as independent election experts predicted the highest percentage turnout in decades.
Thousands of observers, some nonpartisan and others working to help the campaigns of President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, monitored the voting in swing states. Poll watchers reported scattered problems around the country.
``We're in line for record numbers of voters, record numbers of people supervising the process, record numbers of people watching the process and record numbers of people concerned the result might not be what they hoped for,'' said Doug Chapin, director of the nonpartisan electionline.org, which monitors voting reform.
Up to 121 million people will vote, compared with 105 million in 2000, according to Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. That would be 60 percent of eligible voters, the highest percentage since 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, when 61.9 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
A heavy turnout probably hurts Bush, said Larry Sabato, who runs the University of Virginia's Center for Politics in Charlottesville, Virginia.
``If this turnout goes about 120 million, which it might, he's gone,'' Sabato said. ``That many new people are not showing up to say, `Good job, Mr. President.'''
Eight national polls released over the past three days show Bush and Kerry with equal support from likely voters or in a statistical tie.
Long Waits
Ohio Republican Party spokesman Jason Mauk said he stood in line for 2 1/2 hours in Columbus. In Cincinnati, Kerry voter Elizabeth Day waited an hour and a half with her two children. She said there was no line at her polling place at the same time of day four years ago.
Voters streamed into East Hills Middle School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, casting 185 ballots by 8:40 a.m., a pace that poll workers said is unprecedented for the suburban district. Lehigh County, which includes Allentown and part of Bethlehem, anticipates record turnout, county spokeswoman Valerie Hildebeitel said.
``It's very busy here,'' Hildebeitel said, referring to the county election office in Allentown. ``It's just crazy.''
In Palm Beach County, Florida, which voted 62 percent to 35 percent for Democrat Al Gore in 2000, the wait was as long as an hour and a half. Some voters nonetheless said the line was shorter than they anticipated.
Few Problems Reported
``I brought a TV,'' said Kerry supporter Christopher Kiraly, as he stood in a 90-minute line in an open-air concourse to vote at the South Florida Fairgrounds in Palm Beach.
``I just want it to be over,'' said Pam Roth, a Bush supporter who lives in West Palm Beach. ``I want someone to concede tonight.''
An independent observer in heavily Democratic Broward County said that, as of midday, he had seen few glitches.
``There's been very little in the way of serious problems,'' said Dan Seligson, a monitor for electionline.org. ``Just sporadic things.''
Volusia County, Florida, had a problem with the memory card in one of the machines that counts how many votes are cast, said Deanie Lowe, county supervisor of elections. Lowe said the ballots counted by the machine are being recounted.
Turnout was heavy even in such non-battleground states as Georgia, where polls show Bush with a double-digit lead. Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox predicted a record turnout of 3 million people. In metro Atlanta, voters lined up as early as 5 a.m., two hours before polls opened.
Heavy Turnout
``I've never seen so much energy,'' Kerry, the four-term Massachusetts senator, told about 200 volunteers and supporters in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He cast his own vote in Boston later in the day.
Bush voted in his hometown of Crawford, Texas, before flying to Ohio and then Washington.
``I am for a turnout as big as possible,'' he told reporters at his Ohio campaign headquarters in Columbus. ``I will be grateful for a big turnout no matter what happens.''
Still, experts said record turnout would hurt the president. Gans said Bush's efforts to mobilize evangelical voters might not be enough.
``I can't make that add up to more than 4 million to 5 million, so if turnout is up 12 million to 15 million, more of that is fertile territory for Kerry,'' Gans said.
Allegations Traded
Republicans and Democrats traded legal papers and allegations of ballot-box improprieties in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to suppress the vote in areas of high support for Kerry. Republicans say Democratic- aligned groups submitted thousands of fraudulent registrations around the country in an effort to topple Bush.
The pre-election feuding included more than 40 lawsuits around the country over such issues as where voters can cast provisional ballots. Under a 2002 federal law, voters may submit such ballots if they arrive at the polls, find they aren't on the registration list and sign a statement that they are eligible to vote. Those ballots may take weeks to count.
Republicans are monitoring polling places in Ohio after a federal appeals court, acting just after midnight today, reversed two lower court orders that had barred party representatives from election sites.
Florida Fight
Republicans nonetheless weren't present at a number of locations during morning voting. Sean Greene, an electionline.org monitor in Cleveland, said the heavily Democratic precincts he visited had only independent and Kerry campaign monitors.
Mauk, the Ohio Republican spokesman, said many of the 3,600 poll watchers registered by the party might not have received word about the appeals court ruling.
Ohio Republicans last week filed so-called pre-challenges to 35,000 voters in the state. A judge effectively blocked that effort by delaying hearings on the eligibility of the voters.
Ohio and Florida together have 47 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. In Florida, where early voting began Oct. 18, the Kerry campaign is deploying some 3,000 lawyers, primarily to heavily Democratic precincts. Republicans are countering with brigades of their own lawyers.
Florida was the focus of the 36-day presidential election standoff between Bush and Gore in 2000. The fight culminated with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stopped ballot recounts in Florida and sealed Bush's victory.
`Some Jams'
Since that time, Florida has replaced the punch-card ballots that were used in much of the state in 2000 and became the center of the post-vote controversy. Florida voters now use either touch- screen machines or optical-scan ballots.
``All of the touch-screen machines have worked beautifully,'' said Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State. There have been ``some jams'' in optical scanning machines that have been addressed, she said.
In Florida's Broward County, which voted more than 2-to-1 for Gore four years ago, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots sent by the elections office didn't reach the voters. Election workers re-sent about 13,000 duplicate ballots, some by overnight mail, on Oct. 28 and 29.
The Justice Department sent more than 1,000 observers to polling places around the country, more than three times the number sent four years ago.
12 Provisional Ballots Each
Polls indicate the 2004 election may be just as close as the 2000 fight. Gallup, which has polled presidential races since 1936, estimates Bush and Kerry each will get 49 percent of the vote by the end of today.
Pennsylvania, which has 21 electoral votes, is another swing state. In Pittsburgh, Mark Willard, head of the Election Protection Coalition in Allegheny County, said one poll worker had to ask a volunteer about the rules governing provisional ballots.
He said that polling stations had been allocated only 12 provisional ballots apiece and that some requested more from the county office. Willard said his group, which is an affiliate of the civil rights group People for the American Way, so far hasn't seen any signs of voter harassment.
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