US Presidential Election: Repeat of 2000 chaos a strong possibility

From a superstorm in the north-east to confusion over ballot papers in Ohio, lawsuits in Florida and activists taking over polling stations in Texas, the US general election was never going to run smoothly.

But there are fears that, with the race for the presidency so close, the outcome could become enmeshed in the same kind of legal chaos that marred the aftermath of the 2000 election and ended with the US Supreme Court declaring a winner more than a month after polling day, following weeks of recounts in Florida.

Both Barack Obama’s Democrats and Mitt Romney’s Republicans are ready to pounce with courtroom challenges to any perceived injustice that might harm their candidate’s chances.

“Each campaign has more lawyers than you can shake a stick at, deployed to capitals in all of the key battleground states,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Connecticut.

“If you have a really close result in any of those states, with less than half a per cent difference between the candidates, that would trigger an automatic recount and then the challenges become more likely.”

The potential for most trouble, analysts believe, is in Ohio, where election officials mailed out applications for absentee ballots with registration papers for the first time this year. More than 1.3 million people applied, and 1.1 million have been returned, leaving 200,000 voters who could still turn up to try to vote in person today. As with any voter whose eligibility is in doubt, they would then cast a provisional ballot, which by law remains sealed for ten days.

The problem comes if a state is so close that a recount is necessary and provisional ballots become subject to time-consuming checks to see if anyone had voted twice.

As of last night, Mr Obama held a narrow advantage in the state, according to a poll by online analysts Real Clear Politics, but within the margin of error.

“If no winner is known on Wednesday morning the culprits may be procrastinating absentee voters in Ohio,” said John Fund, political commentator for the National Review.

“If it goes on beyond that with no decision it may be due to lawyers from both parties fighting trench warfare over individual ballots in a bloody recount.”