Watch Status of USA Elections between McCain & Obama on Live Map

Watch Status of USA Elections between McCain & Obama on Live Map

Who will be the presedent of USA?

Voters Likely to Face Long Lines, Ballot Problems

As an expected record number of voters flocked to the polls this morning, there were already early reports of scattered voting problems, including machine malfunctions and long lines.

Valerie Vazquez-Rivera from the New York City Board of Elections said the city is experiencing "unprecedented" voter turnout, with some people lining up outside polling places as early as 4 a.m. Long lines were also reported in Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey and Iowa.

The Associated Press reported that voters needed to use paper ballots because of problems with electronic voting machines in some New Jersey precincts, and in Virginia, voters endured longer than usual waits in one instance because, poll workers said, the head of a branch library had overslept.

Eight years after Florida's election debacle, casting a valid vote can mean navigating a patchwork of sometimes baffling state and federal election laws, harried volunteer poll workers and new voting machinery. Add to that an expected record turnout, including many first-time voters and millions who will vote on unfamiliar machinery, and a myriad of problems -- more than the usual polling place snafus and fraud claims -- are inevitable.

The McCain campaign said it has heard from field offices that some Republican election board workers in Pennsylvania have been thrown out by the local judge of elections. Ben Porritt, a McCain spokesman, released a statement saying, "Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process."

The problems are expected to continue throughout the day. Whether they will matter remains to be seen. If the election is a landslide, a few hundred votes here or there won't matter much. But if the race is close, the court decisions and recounts could play a major role in the election.

Election experts expect that many voters may face poorly-maintained voter registration rolls, partisan challenges to their identities, broken voting machines, long lines and machine and ballot shortages. Thousands of lawyers from both camps have fanned out across the country to keep an eye on possible voting irregularities, and to jockey for political advantage.

Lawyers for both parties could file legal challenges on provisional and absentee ballots, the expertise of poll workers, the efficiency of voting machines and the hours of operation at polling places. Here are some key voting issues and states to watch for as Election Day gets under way.

Will the System Be Overwhelmed?

A flood of voters is expected at the polls today. If the long lines of early voters are any indication, the record numbers will strain voting systems, particularly in states, such as Pennsylvania, that don't allow early voting.

The expected high turnout could mean hours-long waits, particularly in urban areas, strained voting machines, making breakdowns more likely, and complaints that some people were preventing from voting.

All this could lead to Election Day lawsuits asking to keep the polls open longer, which Republicans are expected to challenge. Some might chafe at extending hours for some counties and not for others. Brenda Wright, legal director of the voting rights group Demos, told ABC News last week, "The very fact that you may have some voters getting through polling places in 15 minutes, while other voters are having to wait for hours, creates a potential equal protection problem."

The exact definition of the end of a line could create its own legal problem. If significant numbers of voters are unable to vote -- especially if the long lines are predominantly in minority neighborhoods -- lawyers may try to challenge the fairness of the voting system, as has already happened in Virginia.

Obama, McCain in Final Sprint

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri — Democratic Senator Barak Obama and rival Republican John McCain on Sunday, November 2, hurled themselves into a Herculean final 48 hours of one of America's longest White House races.

"We are two days away from changing America, and it's going to start right here in the great state of Ohio," Obama told a crowd of over 60,000 people in front of the Columbus state house, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"In two days, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need."

Obama's wife Michelle joined her husband in exhorting the huge crowd of supporters to remake the nation as the would-be first family put on a loving tableau two days from election day.

She told the rally in the must-win state of Ohio, which carries 20 electoral votes, that the campaign had been an "amazing journey," as young and old found a voice in politics for the first time.

Michelle insisted the race was not about Obama.

"It never was, it never will be. This race is about us, all of you, the millions of you who want to change this country and want to be part of building a different kind of democracy," she said.

"There's this beautiful thing about my husband, he thinks he can do everything," she said, while stressing he could not defeat McCain on his own.

"Now, it's our turn," Michelle. "If we want a leader like Barack Obama, our job is to send him to the White House.

"Barack Obama needs you for the next two days. He's going to need you for the next four years and eight years."

Polls show that the result in Ohio, which narrowly voted Republican in 2004, could still go either way.

Obama, the 47-year-old Illinois senator bidding to become America's first black president, is leading in all national polls against Republican rival John McCain.

In its latest national tracking poll Sunday, Zogby International had Obama on 49.5 percent to McCain's 43.8 percent.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll gave Obama a 53-44 percent lead.

The latest Rasmussen daily poll showed Obama leading with 51 percent of the vote with McCain five points back on 46 percent.

Possible Comeback

Despite more gloomy news from the opinion polls, McCain predicted victory in his election race.

"We are going to win in Pennsylvania, we are going to win this election - I sense it and I know it," he told supporters in Wallingford

"We are going to win here and we are going to bring real change to Washington," he added, in the first of two rallies in the state.

"We've got two days, knock on doors, with your help we can win. We need you to volunteer, we need a new direction and we have to fight for it," the 72-year-old Arizona senator told supporters.

"My friends -- the Mac is Back."

Pennsylvania, a crucial state with a rich harvest of 21 electoral college votes, voted Democratic in 2004.

The state has not been won by a Republican since 1988, and Obama has maintained a steady lead averaging nine points in polls.

McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis said the polls were skewing the true perception of the race.

"There is no doubt that John McCain is increasing his margins in almost every state in the country right now and I think what we're in for is a slam-bang finish," he said on Fox News Sunday.

"He's been counted out before and won these kinds of states, and we're in the process of winning them right now."

The presidential campaign has narrowed down to states that have been reliably Republican in recent elections, or in the case of Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina, that have not voted for a Democratic hopeful in decades.

Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, noted Democrats have had an advantage in early voting in key states like Colorado and Florida.

"In Colorado last time, the Republicans had an 8-point edge in early voting. We have an edge now," he said on ABC's "This Week."

"In Florida, they finished early voting and absentee voting 40,000 votes ahead. We think we're going to have a 350,000 vote edge."

The historic campaign has lasted nearly two years and cost more than $2 billion.

McCain, Obama campaign hard as long election season draws to a close

Aiming for a last-minute upset, Republican John McCain embarked on a grueling odyssey through seven swing states Monday while Democrat Barack Obama was headed toward three longtime GOP bastions that have become Democratic-leaning battlegrounds in the historic presidential contest.

"My friends, it's official: There's just one day left until we take America in a new direction," McCain said at a raucous, heavily Hispanic rally in Miami just after midnight.

The candidates' disparate schedules on the last day of the long presidential contest reflected the overall state of the race going into its final hours.

Obama, cruising comfortably ahead in national and many battleground state polls, was starting his day with a late morning rally in Jacksonville, before heading to events in Virginia and North Carolina.

McCain, meanwhile, was struggling to hang onto those and other states that voted for President Bush in 2004 in hopes of preserving a slim path to victory Tuesday night.

The Arizona senator planned a demanding schedule across time zones, beginning early in Tampa and going on to Tennessee, whose media market reaches into Virginia. He was also scheduled to hit Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada before ending early Tuesday with a rally in Prescott, Ariz., before returning home to Phoenix.

McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was racing through five Bush states — Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada — in an effort to boost conservative turnout. The Alaska governor has been a popular draw for many GOP base voters.

Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, was to campaign in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.

Breaking with tradition, both candidates planned to campaign on Election Day. McCain scheduled campaign stops in Colorado and New Mexico while Obama was set to make a quick trip to Indiana before returning to Chicago for a massive rally in Grant Park.

Can McCain Pull Off the Big One While on Defense?

If the October surprise was that we weren't surprised, November's surprise is that we still might be.

(And Barack Obama and Sarah Palin definitely still can be.)

For consumption this Sunday: A presidential candidate sends back money to an aunt he didn't know was around, because she's in the country illegally. Another presidential candidate gets his nationally televised infomercial -- and tries to hawk cheap commemorative flatware.

A vice-presidential endorsement is turned into a quickie TV ad -- by the other side. A would-be vice president agrees to a hunting date with a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France.

Just enough surprises to remind us: For every certain assertion, there's a caveat; for every poll, an outlier; for every clear-eyed prediction, clouds.

The map may be turning blue, but red-state voters stand the best chance of glimpsing a candidate between now and Tuesday. Obama spends his Sunday hitting Ohio's three largest cities, (with Bruce Springsteen joining him in Cleveland), then visits Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia on Monday before winding his journey up in Chicago.

John McCain makes his final stabs at offense Sunday, in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire (a superstitious candidate does his final town hall in a lucky spot), before ending his day in Florida. Seven states Monday: Florida, Tennessee (to reach a remote swath of Virginia), Pennsylvania (again), Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada, and, finally, Arizona.

(Worth questioning, outcome depending: Why is McCain insisting on a final New Hampshire stop? Why is Obama not making a final Pennsylvania stop?)

Palin does a full Ohio day Sunday, then spends Monday in Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada; she won't breathe blue-state air until after the election, save for a refueling stop in Seattle as she heads back to Alaska.

For Biden, it's all Florida Sunday, then Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania Monday, on his way back to Delaware.

If cartography is destiny, the landscape for McCain is bleak indeed.

"Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states -- Colorado, Missouri and Nevada -- that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times. "The campaign's final days brought a reminder of how Mr. Obama's financial might had allowed him to redraw the political map. In addition to the states he visited on Saturday, Mr. Obama was planning stops Sunday in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, which went Republican four years ago."

"Barack Obama and the Democrats hold a commanding position two days before Tuesday's election, with the senator from Illinois leading in states whose electoral votes total nearly 300 and with his party counting on significantly expanded majorities in the House and Senate," David Broder, Dan Balz, and Chris Cillizza write in The Washington Post. "The senator from Arizona has not been in front in any of the 159 national polls conducted over the past six weeks."

The counter(spin): "The race is changing quickly," McCain pollster Bill McInturff tells the Post.

"We are certainly encouraged by the tightening of the polls," McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace tells the Times.

The overused phrase: McCain needs to draw an inside straight. The underused phrase: McCain needs blackjack, then again, again, and again.

"To win on Tuesday, analysts and polls suggest, the Republican nominee must win nearly all the remaining undecided voters in key swing states and peel a large chunk of 'soft' supporters from Democratic rival Barack Obama," Jim Tankersley writes in the Chicago Tribune. "Then he must hope that his supporters vote in overwhelming numbers, and that more Obama supporters than expected stay home."

"History does favor Obama on one turnout count: the weather. AccuWeather.com says it will be unseasonably warm and dry on Election Day," Tankersley writes.

The only thing left impervious to spin is the travel schedule, and the picture it depicts is cramped for John McCain. "Both candidates have spent the last week -- and plan to spend the final days of the campaign -- stumping almost entirely in states that went for President Bush in the last presidential election," Lisa Lerer and Carrie Budoff Brown write for Politico.

McCain might get them, if he could find them: "Persuadable voters have dwindled in the closing days of the presidential election: Nearly a quarter of likely voters report that they've already cast their ballots, and, among the rest, 93 percent say their minds are definitely made up," ABC polling director Gary Langer writes. "That underscores the peril for John McCain, trailing Barack Obama in vote preference with relatively few minds left to change. The dearth of movable voters marks the final shift from persuasion to turnout -- an effort, by each side, to get its voters to vote."