The OFFICIAL United States Presidential Election Thread! II

[PLATO]

CBS projecting FL for Bush

[joncha]

The voices in my head told my that Nader won. It's official!

[Jack_www]

Fox News still has not called Florida

[Jack_www]

Here is the link form CBS site:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/home/main100.shtml

[joncha]

A source.

[Sava]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/02/states.vote/index.html

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Florida voters cast an "incredible number" of absentee ballots in Tuesday's presidential election, and counting them may take until Thursday, Secretary of State Glenda Hood said Tuesday night.

High voter turnout was reported across the country for one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent history.

Hood said only about 30,000 of the 94,000 absentee ballots received in heavily Democratic Miami-Dade County had been counted, and officials were pulling in "extra staff" to complete the count by noon Thursday, the deadline by which counties must complete the unofficial canvass of all votes.

Broward County, north of Miami and also heavily Democratic, had 92,000 absentee ballots requested, Hood said, but the count of the ballots that were returned may be completed overnight.

Palm Beach County began counting its absentee ballots Friday. In that county, 70,000 absentee ballots were received, Hood said.

Hood said workers will continue tallying the votes around the clock until the process is completed.

An hour after the scheduled shutdown of most of the state's polls, Hood said 7,000 polling places "are now closed" and "we know there are still some polling places with lines."

State officials have insisted that anybody still in line at 7 p.m. would be allowed to vote.

Deforest Soaries, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, monitored the voting in several heavy turnout districts, including Miami-Dade, and said he was impressed by what he saw.

The commission was created under the Help America Vote Act, an electoral reform effort that followed the 2000 presidential recount.

"We knew the eyes of the world would be on us during this election cycle," Hood said. "But we were prepared, and the reforms we've enacted are working."

Earlier Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Florida Legal Services filed a federal court suit in Miami seeking to extend the deadline for absentee ballots.

The suit involves absentee ballots from Broward and Miami-Dade counties that were sent out late by elections officials even though they were requested well in advance of the October 4 deadline. Thousands of would-be absentee voters may have been affected, the ACLU said.

Three of the plaintiffs in the suit -- a Broward County woman with a second home in Pennsylvania, and students from Miami-Dade County who attend college elsewhere in Florida -- received their ballots just Tuesday.

The suit asks that the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline for absentee ballots to be cast be extended until November 12, the deadline for eligible overseas ballots. The ballots would have to be postmarked Tuesday.

"These people applied for the right to vote weeks in advance of the deadline and they're being prevented from voting in today's election through no fault of their own, only the negligence of election officials," Florida ACLU Executive Director Howard Simon told CNN.

"I don't think anybody should be denied the right to vote because of the negligence of election officials. They should be treated the same as people overseas."

Supporters of President Bush contend that they will end up with a 2-to-1 edge in absentee ballots and that those ballots are a key to the campaign's strategy to win the important state.

CNN's Alanne Orjoux, Tom Watkins, Paul Varian, Deborah Feyerick, Susan Candiotti, Adaora Udoji, Chris Mould and Fran Fifis contributed to this report.

so don't jump the gun here.

[Pekka]

Nah, Bush will win this election there's no turning back... Ohio won't save Kerry.

[reismark]

Something that's bugging me:

The polls closed in Hawaii hours ago. Why haven't any of its precincts reported?

[joncha]

CNN has now projected Florida for Bush too.

[Winston]

As I posted, the BBC called Florida for Bush half an hour ago. I believe ABC has done so as well.

[monkspider]

More news on Florida, apparently there are still 1 million absentee ballots out there, and they are from mostly democrat areas.

Florida may yet still be in play.

[Imran Siddiqui]

CNN called Florida for Bush.

[Guynemer]

So does anybody have a definitive answer on the early voting?

[Ben Kenobi]

We've seen Howard's end.

Is this the end for Kerry?

[Robert]

Originally posted by monkspider
More news on Florida, apparently there are still 1 million absentee ballots out there, and they are from mostly democrat areas.

Florida may yet still be in play.

Source?