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U.S. President Bush supporters wave flags during an election rally early Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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INDEPTH: US ELECTION 2004
U.S. election results
CBC News Online | Updated November 3, 2004
In 2000, it took 36 days to sort out which candidate took Florida - and the keys to the White House. This time, Florida was decided in less than four hours. It was left to Ohio to decide the winner in 2004.
It was almost a replay of 2000 - John Kerry won almost all the states that Al Gore won. And George W. Bush held on to what he took four years ago, except for New Hampshire.
And that's about what the experts were calling for all along. But other factors that political observers had expected to play a role failed to have much of an impact.
Voter turnout leads to delays
There were concerns that voters would turn out in such high numbers they would swamp polling stations, leading to long delays. In Columbus, Ohio, some polling stations remained open hours after they were supposed to close in order to accommodate the people who were in line waiting to cast their ballot.
It took voters in Ohio up to seven minutes to cast their ballots. In some jurisdictions, there were as many as 32 choices to make - from the country's president to local judges and county officials and state referendums.
There had been a surge in the registration of new voters this year, and allegations by both sides of improper registrations - or downright fraud. Republicans and Democrats had huge teams of lawyers standing by in case they were needed to deal with problems at polling stations. There were fears the lawyers would challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters, and that the election would once again be decided in the courts.
Despite all the lawyers, election-rights activists and partisan voting monitors who fanned out to polling stations across the country, there were few complaints of voting irregularity. As voting progressed, hopes rose that this election would not be decided by the courts. Florida was busy, but the hanging chads of 2000 were not a factor.
Exit polls give Democrats hope
By early afternoon, there were rumours that John Kerry was in for a very good day. Exit polls suggested the Democratic challenger was doing very well in key battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.
Kerry exuded optimism on election morning after casting his ballot. "I'm very confident we made the case for change," he told reporters in Boston.
But exit polls can be notoriously unreliable, according to Allan Gregg, chair of the Strategic Counsel. Gregg told CBC News one thing that was clear in this election is that 15 million more people turned up at polling stations than four years ago.
For turnout to surge, Gregg said, you have to have an election where people believe something is actually at stake.
"The second level is operational and organizational muscle. That's the calling people, getting babysitters and making sure voters get out to the polls."
"The question is," he said, "is who are those people? Who is coming out to vote who didn't come out to vote in 2000? A good chunk appears to be four million newly registered fundamentalist Christians."
The numbers suggest they favoured Bush by a 4-1 margin - and they came out in droves to vote for measures in 11 states banning gay marriage.
"What appears to be happening," Gregg said as the night wore on, "is gains the Democrats were making appear to have been offset by the rural, elderly and born again vote. Only three states may change hands from 2000 - and that is remarkable."
Neither candidate surged to a commanding lead. Many people seemed resigned to the possibility that a winner would not be declared for days.
Nader plays minor role
In 2000, many Democrats blamed Ralph Nader for handing the White House to Bush. This time, there was no Nader factor. He received about a quarter of the vote he received four years earlier. Only in Wisconsin did he attract more votes than the number of votes separating Kerry from Bush – and that was a state won by Kerry.
"The contempt that the Democratic party has for groups that support them when these groups do not make any demands on them - they are making the Democratic party seem more like the Republican party," Nader said.
When Nader gave his concession speech Tuesday night, no major American network carried it live.
Bush had dearly wanted to carry Pennsylvania, a state that had gone to Al Gore in 2000. He visited the state 44 times during his presidency - more than any other state. He promised steel tariffs in an attempt to woo voters. In the end, Kerry took it by four percentage points.
Ohio plays a central role
Through the early hours of Wednesday morning, Ohio remained too close to call. It was the state that both candidates focused on in the final days of the campaign. Both Bush and Kerry, as well as their running mates Dick Cheney and John Edwards and other key Republicans and Democrats, paid dozens of visits to the state in the final weeks of the campaign. The two sides also spent $50 million US in getting their messages out on televisions across the state.
It was also a state where fears of legal challenges were among the highest.
On Election Day, an appeals court decision cleared the way for partisan observers to challenge a voter's eligibility. Lower courts had earlier ruled that only polling station workers could do that.
Ohio is also home to a complicated voting system. Voters faced either an optical scan system, an electronic screen system, or those punch cards that led to such chaos in Florida four years ago.
In the end, very few challenges were registered. However, the results remained in doubt into Wednesday morning. Trailing by two percentage points, Kerry was not prepared to repeat Al Gore's mistake in 2000 in which he conceded Florida early, but then challenged the results unsuccessfully in court.
The Ohio official in charge of elections said there's still some counting to do in the state.
"I would suggest to you that if the number of votes that make up the difference between the two candidates is less than the number of outstanding provisional ballots, then everyone should take a deep breath and relax because we're not going to start counting those ballots until the eleventh day after the election," Kenneth Blackwell told reporters.
There had been rumours that there were as many as 250,000 provisional ballots to be counted. Blackwell said the number would probably be closer to about 175,000.
There would be no concession or victory speeches election night. Vice-presidential candidate John Edwards emerged at 2:30 a.m. EST to tell supporters in Boston that the Democrats will fight for every vote.
"We've waited four years for the election. We can wait one more night for victory."
It didn't take one more night. Late Wednesday morning, Kerry called Bush to concede the race for the White House. The numbers in Ohio were too much for Kerry to overcome. Ohio went to George W. Bush giving him enough electoral college votes to put his name on the Oval Office door for another four years. Unlike the last election, this time Bush not only won in the Electoral College – he also won the popular vote.
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| QUICK FACTS: |
Voting age population (VAP) in 2000:
205,815,000
Eligible voters (VEP) in 2000:
193,199,543
Voter turnout (% of VEP) in 2000:
54.5%
Numbers of seats up for election (2004):
House: 435 (all of them)
Senate: 34 (of 100)
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