By Munir K. Nasser
Chief Correspondent, Washington, DC
Albawaba.com
George W. Bush captured the presidency Wednesday just six years after taking public office for the first time, overcoming doubts and sometimes outright ridicule about his intellect to seize the office from which his father was forcibly evicted in 1992.
Bush gained the 271 electoral college votes needed to win the White house after a long night of suspense in which the State of Florida decided the outcome of the elections. Gore finally gained 249 electoral votes. The final results were announced at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning US Eastern Standard time.
The stunningly close vote held America on the edge of suspense as they waited for the winner to be announced. The final results of elections were delayed to the early morning hours due to turmoil in the State of Florida on Tuesday night. Exactly what went wrong was not clear, but the first warning came at 9:38 p.m. in a message from the Voter News Service (VNS), which transmits voter exit poll data to news organizations that they then use to project winners and losers on election night. At 10:13 p.m., VNS put the vote in the entire state of Florida in doubt. "We're retracting our call in Florida because we don't have our previous confidence," it said in a message to news organizations.
The situation in Florida was complicated by a large number of absentee ballots in the state that had not been counted. Republican officials said that about 100,000 more Republicans had requested absentee ballots than had Democrats. Later estimates put absentee ballots at close to a million votes.
The turmoil in the State produced an extraordinary bit of television drama, with four networks abruptly backing off their projection that Vice President Gore would win Florida's crucial 25 electoral votes.
They did so after George W. Bush allowed cameras into the Texas governor's mansion to insist that the Florida contest was not over.
At 10 p.m., CBS, ABC and CNN all said they were moving Florida into the undecided category, more than two hours after they had used exit-poll data to call the state for Gore. The network reversal quickly changed the commentary, which had increasingly been saying it would be very difficult for Bush to beat Gore after having lost Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
At about 1:00 a.m., Texas Gov. George W. Bush has won Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. The victories pushed the Republican hopeful past the Democratic nominee in the electoral vote count, with calls yet to be made in four states, and the eyes of the country focused on Florida's popular 25 electoral votes. After Bush's victory in Alaska, all polling places closed cross the country. At that point, Bush’s estimates were 246 electoral votes to Gore's 242.
Television networks also estimated that the Republican Party will retain control of the House of Representatives, dashing Democratic hopes of regaining the chamber they lost in the 1994 mid term elections.
Control of the US House of Representatives is expected to remain in Republican hands. They picked up Democratic seats in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, offsetting a Democratic pick-up in Oklahoma.
The Republicans currently hold a razor-thin 13-seat margin over the Democrats in the House, (223-210) with two seats being held by independents. These numbers, however, are all but certain to change with tonight's election results.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
