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America heads to cliffhanger at polls
Tuesday November 06, 2012 10:17:58 AM,
RIA Novosti
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Washington: Americans are preparing to head to the polls Tuesday to elect the
next US president, while Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and
Republican challenger Mitt Romney hit the campaign trail for a
furious final day of courting votes in a handful of states.
Obama and Romney are making one final push through several
so-called "battleground" states, where the race between the two
candidates remains close. Both delivered final arguments for their
respective candidacies Monday in Florida, where early voting over
the weekend was marred by long lines and a bomb threat at an
Orlando-area polling station.
The candidates were scheduled to hold campaign events less than 10
miles apart Monday evening in the strategically important
battleground state of Ohio, whose 18 electoral votes are seen as
potentially crucial in determining the winner of the election.
Obama carries a slight lead in the polls nationally, according to
the website RealClearPolitics, which tracks and averages
nationwide polling data. Meanwhile, The New York Times' blog Five
Thirty Eight, which analyzes state-by-state polling data, gave
Obama an 86.3 chance of winning the presidency as of Monday
compared to 13.7 percent for Romney.
Predictably, both campaigns are delivering an optimistic forecast
for Tuesday's election.
"The people of America understand we're taking back the White
House," Romney told the crowd Monday at an event in Pennsylvania.
The boss' chair in the White House's Oval Office isn't the only
one up for grabs Tuesday. Americans will also vote in races for
all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of
Congress where Republicans currently enjoy a 240-190 majority over
the Democrats. Five seats are currently vacant.
Republicans are expected to hold on to their House majority, while
Democrats are widely predicted to maintain their Senate majority
after the dust settles in races for 33 of the upper chamber's 100
seats. Democrats currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Election Day also features ballot measures in several states on a
range of contentious and divisive social issues in the US.
Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether to
make their states the first in the union to legalize same-sex
marriage through direct, popular vote. The initiatives come as the
US Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the coming
months on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a
federal law defining marriage as strictly between a man and a
woman.
Voters in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington will also vote Tuesday
on whether to legalize marijuana in their states. Proponents of
the ballot measures say legalization would bring much-needed
revenues from taxes on marijuana while helping to defang criminals
trafficking the drug in an unregulated black market.
Should the states decide to legalize marijuana, however, they
could find themselves at odds with a federal law banning the sale,
possession, and distribution of the drug. The US Justice
Department issued an advisory ahead of a similar California ballot
initiative in 2010 saying that it would enforce federal drug laws
regardless of state laws allowing legal marijuana.
Californians ultimately rejected the ballot measure to legalize
the drug in the state.
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