Charger Features

Popcorn and politics...Exit polls, pundits, and Ohio, oh my!

Erin McMillan, Charger Staff

The presidential election officially came to an end on Nov. 3. After the election on Nov. 2, 55.1 million people turned on their televisions to watch the voter returns and see who would win. When it appeared that Ohio would cause problems similar to that of Florida in the 2000 election, John Kerry conceded and George Bush was elected as president.

At first, everything went according to plan. The expected red states went to George Bush and the normally blue states went to John Kerry. By night’s end, Ohio, which had been the largest key state for both candidates, had still not reported. The candidates were separated by only two electoral votes and neither had the required 270 electoral votes needed to be elected. Ohio holds twenty electoral votes, and without its input, the election could not be called.

Ohio’s dilemma with reporting their results was all in the provisional ballots. A nationwide law that went into effect this year says that a provisonal ballot must be filled out if a person is not on the list of registered voters or if a person reports to the wrong voting precinct. Election officials must then sift through and evaluate each provisonal ballot to see if the voter concerned is, indeed, an eligible voter before the vote can be counted. Ohio had a record 150,000 pending provisonal ballots, and, because of an old law, they are not permitted to count the ballots for ten days. In the state, Bush and Kerry were separated by 140,000 votes, with Bush leading. Because of the uncounted ballots, Ohio was officially said to be “ too close to call.”

On the morning of Nov. 3, however, John Kerry gracefully bowed out and conceded the election to his opponent, and, despite a disasterous first term, Bush was elected America’s leader for the next four years. President Bush will spend the remaining months of his first term making plans for his second while John Kerry will finish out his Senate term. Nov. 3 was not only a day of political disappointment for the Kerry campaign, but also a day of personal tragedy when hours after Kerry’s concession speech, former vice presidential running mate John Edward’s wife Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer.

After a year of grueling campaigning on the part of both candidates, it is all finally over. The yard signs can come down, the vicious attack ads will cease and America has another four years to learn to live with each other as a deeply divided nation.