Turnout heavy as Bush, Kerry face voters

Unusually large numbers of voters turned out on Tuesday to choose between President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry after a deadlocked White House campaign marked by deep divisions over the war in Iraq, the battle against terrorism and the economy.

With the electorate polarized over the country's direction three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks inspired a short-lived unity, as many as 125 million Americans were voting to set the nation's course for the next four years.

Polls showed the race was extraordinarily close, with a flurry of surveys showing a dead heat nationally and contradictory polls indicating most of the 10 hardest fought battleground states could tip either way.

Voters around the country showed up well before the polls opened and were unusually motivated amid lingering bitterness over the 2000 election, when Bush lost the popular vote but defeated Democrat Al Gore in the Electoral College after a long and bitter legal challenge settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Republicans and Democrats said turnout was expected to be extraordinarily large and the outcome may not be known quickly with both sides fielding armies of lawyers to challenge close results and girding for the possibility of a long legal fight.

Officials in Florida, where more than 10 million people are eligible to vote, reported long lines but no early problems at polling stations.

There were scattered reports of voting difficulties and irregularities elsewhere, including slashed tires on cars that were to take voters to the polls in Milwaukee, Wis., and allegations of ballot stuffing in a poor black Philadelphia neighborhood. The Philadelphia allegations were quickly denied by the district attorney.

Bush sounded confident after voting at the local firehouse near his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"I believe I'm going to win," Bush told reporters before heading to the battleground state of Ohio to thank Republican election volunteers and then returning to the White House. "My hope, of course, is that this election ends tonight."

In his own drive to get voters to the polls, Kerry met Democratic activists in Wisconsin, a battleground state that allows same-day registration, and hammered Bush on his conduct of the Iraq war.

"You have a choice, all Americans have this choice today," the Massachusetts senator said before heading home to Boston to vote. "George Bush made his choices...He made a choice without a plan to win the peace."

Independent candidate Ralph Nader could play the role of spoiler, although his support in polls this year is much less than in 2000, when some say he helped tip the race to Bush.

In addition to the presidential race, Americans will also decide which party holds power in Congress and will vote on governorships in 11 states, with Bush's Republicans favored to retain control of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Long lines
When the doors opened the line at St. Jerome's, a Catholic Church in Cleveland's working-class Collinwood neighborhood, stretched from the basement auditorium where voting was taking place, up a flight of stairs and out the door.

"It usually doesn't get this busy until 7:30 when people come on their way to work," said Betty Susbauer, who has voted at the church for many years.

"We are hearing that the lines are longer than they have ever been in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida," said Chellie Pingree, president of nonpartisan Common Cause group, saying most reports suggested exceptionally heavy turnout.

There were scattered reports of voting difficulties, including broken voting machines and scarce provisional ballots that allow voters not on the rolls to cast a vote that is counted if their eligibility is later proven.

"Long lines...no one directing you where to go," said Sally Woznicki, 40, who waited 45 minutes to vote at the Evangelical Church in Hudson, Ohio, a heavily Republican area southeast of Cleveland.

Poll monitors in Philadelphia reported numerous problems especially in black neighborhoods that included broken voting machines and alleged attempts to intimidate voters.

In one sign of the legal battles, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens allowed Republicans to challenge voter qualifications inside polling stations in Ohio, a development that Democrats fear could be used to intimidate their core voters.

Bush and Kerry had spent their final day on the campaign trail on Monday racing back and forth through a handful of crucial swing states in a last-ditch hunt for votes, as both men try to stitch together the 270 electoral votes needed to claim victory.

The voting on Tuesday concluded an extraordinarily close and contentious campaign focused on Iraq and national security, with Bush defending his doctrine of pre-emptive war and criticizing the Massachusetts senator as too liberal, too inconsistent and too weak to lead.

Kerry countered by challenging Bush's "go it alone" international approach, his decision to go to war in Iraq without enough allied backing and his refusal to acknowledge his mistakes and correct them.

The election shaped up to be historically close and to perhaps rival the disputed campaign of 2000, when Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Gore but won the Electoral College after the Supreme Court stopped a vote recount in Florida.

The spotlight on Tuesday will be on Florida again, along with the new showdown state of Ohio, both won narrowly by Bush in 2000 and now the biggest remaining toss-up states.

Kerry must win at least one of those two states to have a realistic shot at victory, while a Bush loss in Florida would leave him in danger unless he could steal Pennsylvania or some Midwestern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa--all won by Gore in 2000.

A Reuters/Zogby poll of 10 battleground states found Kerry trailing Bush in Ohio by six percentage points and the candidates in a tie in Florida at 48 percent each. Kerry led in six states, all won by Gore in 2000. To claim the White House, he will have to win some states taken by Bush in 2000.