CLEVELAND -- Ohio looms as this year's Florida -- the decisive state -- in the presidential race.
With 99 percent of the votes counted in the state of Ohio, Bush is leading Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent. (
Latest Results)
NewsChannel5 reported that with the ballots counted in Cuyahoga County, John Kerry had gotten 66 percent of those votes compared with 33 percent for President George W. Bush.
"The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio," Kerry's campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said.
However, Bush laid claim to Ohio's 20 electoral votes over Kerry's objections and planned to declare victory.
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said that Ohio was trending toward having 175,000 provisional ballots that still need to be counted. He said that number would be on the high end.
"That is just a speculation," Blackwell said.
He said those votes still have to be counted in Ohio. He added that he will make sure that all votes are counted no matter if it takes two hours, two days or two weeks. For that reason, ABC News will not declare a winner in Ohio.
The provisional ballots will be counted beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Most polls closed in Ohio at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday after a day that included judical rulings, long lines and angry voters.
In the Cleveland area, voters waited up to four hours to cast their ballots. In Oberlin, a church near the college was bombarded by hundreds of students trying to vote until about 10 p.m. Some people waited in line six hours to vote.
At one time, the line wrapped around the church where the polls were set up two-and-a-half times. The precint usually gets about 500 voters. Tuesday, more than 1,100 people showed up to vote. (
Read Voter Polling Experiences)
Voter turnout has been about 70 percent in Cuyahoga County Tuesday.
The focus of this election year was on the race for president, but there were many important local issues on ballots.
One of the most watched races was for the Cleveland Municipal School levy. It was defeated by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent, NewsChannel5 reported. (
Levy Results)
Early results also showed that Issue 1 passed in Ohio and Sen. George Voinovich was declared a winner over Eric Fingerhut for the U.S. Senate seat.
ISSUE 1:Ohioans backed up the nation's toughest law banning gay marriage with an even broader constitutional amendment against civil unions on Tuesday.
Issue 1 bans same-sex marriage under the Ohio Constitution and prohibits state and local governments from granting legal status to unmarried couples of either sex. The amendment, the only statewide issue on Tuesday's ballot, passed by a 3-2 ratio, based on a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews. It gathered equal support from men and women, blacks and whites.
Ten other states had amendments on their ballots, but legal analysts said Ohio's was broader because of language barring any status that "intends to approximate marriage."
Two-thirds of Ohio married voters supported the amendment, according to an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press, while unmarried voters supported it by a slim majority.
About three-quarters of those who attend church weekly voted for the amendment, while those who never attend church opposed it 2-1.
The amendment also did poorly among those who believe the economy is doing poorly. Ads and yard signs by amendment opponents said it would hurt universities and businesses trying to attract top talent.
Voters age 29 and younger were about evenly split, while older voters overwhelmingly approved it, according to the poll of 1,389 Ohio voters conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, higher for subgroups.
VOINOVICH WINS: Republican George Voinovich, well-known and well-funded, was easily re-elected to a second term in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, defeating a Democratic state lawmaker and former congressman.
Voinovich's win in Ohio was based on a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews conducted for the AP by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. The exit poll of 1,389 Ohio voters was subject to sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, higher for subgroups.
The senator started his re-election campaign in September, traveling the state by bus and running a negative television ad questioning Fingerhut's stance on security. Fingerhut, who has been campaigning for the last year and a half, walked 335 miles across the state.
Both campaigned on the economy in a state that has lost about 200,000 jobs in the last four years. Ohio's unemployment rate was 6 percent in September, compared to 5.4 percent nationally.
Voinovich, former two-term governor and mayor of Cleveland, said his experience made him the best person to steer Ohio to better economic times.
Fingerhut, a three-term state senator from Cleveland, had argued that the state needs a fresh vision to create more jobs and improve life for most Ohioans.
Voinovich's win makes him the second Republican senator re-elected in Ohio since the 1950s. Sen. Mike DeWine was the first, in 2000.
KUCINICH, LATOURETTE WIN Former presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, coasted to re-election in District 10. He has been declared a winner over Edward Herman and Barbara Ferris.
Sherrod Brown was declared a winner in District 13. And Steven LaTourettee has won re-election in District 14 over challenger Capri Cafaro.
For complete results in the U.S. House in Ohio,
click here ELECTION RESULTS: Copyright 2005 by NewsNet5. The Associated Press
contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be
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Hundreds Of Students Overwhelm Polling Place
