Flaws in US electoral system resurface

Competing forecasts, complaints over exit polls, a candidate's refusal to concede defeat and the prospect of days of wrangling to determine a winner gave Tuesday's election an eerie resonance with the fabled photo finish of 2000.

Then it was Florida; this time it boiled down to the Midwestern state of Ohio, where Democrat John Kerry trailed President George W. Bush by 133,000 votes but hoped to make it up with provisional and absentee ballots.

For the most part, the election was remarkably trouble-free. Absent were shrill cries of massive voter fraud. The nightmare scenario of court challenges in several states never materialized.

But if there is one thing the election of 2004 proved, it was that the potential for electoral chaos highlighted in 2000 remains very much alive every time the archaic US voting system runs up against a super-close result.

Few can forget the roller-coaster battle between Bush and Democrat Al Gore on November 7, 2000.

Shortly before 8:00 pm (0000 GMT), all the major networks, using exit polls from a consortium known as Voter News Service, put Florida's 25 electoral votes in Gore's column and declared him the likely overall winner.

But VNS compiled its figures before polls closed in the state's strongly Republican panhandle. As those results came in, the networks made an unprecedented turnabout and proclaimed Florida too close to call.

At around 2:15 am (0615 GMT) the following day, the networks, led by the conservative Fox News, gave Florida and the White House to Bush. Gore was beaten 271 to 266 in the electoral vote contest and called Bush to concede, but the drama was far from over.

As the Republican's lead in Florida shrunk to just a few thousand votes, Gore, who was leading in the popular tally nationwide by more than half a million, called an incredulous Bush to say the race was still on.

An hour later, the networks again reversed themselves and said Florida was anybody's guess. Bush was ahead by 1,784 votes out of nearly six million cast and a recount started, accompanied by fierce legal maneuvering on both sides.

Bush's margin was whittled down to a final 537 votes and the country held its breath as court challenges dragged on for weeks, making their way through the Florida court system before ending up in the US Supreme Court.