01 November 2004	Monday	17 Ramazan 1425

MIAMI, Oct 31: A pivotal battleground state, Florida is braced for a tight race and praying that Tuesday's election will not see a repeat of the 2000 chaos that delayed the outcome of the presidential race by 36 days.

Thousands of lawyers are pouring into the state, deployed by the two campaigns and ready to pounce on any perceived irregularity.

They have already filed a dozen lawsuits as partisan claims of intimidation, illegal voting and missing ballots raised the spectre of the 2000 debacle.

The controversy has caused renewed embarrassment to Florida at a time when it is in the national spotlight because of the key role it is likely to play again in determining who will be the next US president.

"Florida is absolutely necessary to win the election," said former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who canvassed for Kerry in Miami over the weekend.

President George W. Bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry have focused much of their energy on Florida in recent days, actively courting minorities and undecided voters.

With polls putting them in a deadlock, the candidates are going after every possible vote in the southeastern state where a 537-vote lead sent Bush to the White House and which has 27 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.

The heaviest campaigning has been targeted at central Florida, home to a large and politically flexible Hispanic community, and thought to have the state's largest number of undecided voters.

An influx of immigrants, many of them from Puerto Rico, has brought the state's Hispanic population to 3.2 million, and has weakened the impact of the 500,000 Cuban-American voters, a staunchly Republican bloc.

The Kerry campaign hopes that anger over recent travel restrictions to Cuba will win them some of the Cuban votes, though they are focusing more closely on other Hispanic groups.

"Both the Democratic and Republican parties believe that that vote is in play," said Robert Jackson, a political science professor at Florida State University.

The Republicans also have been actively courting the 500,000 Jewish voters. That community traditionally sides with the Democratic candidate, but the current government's strong pro- Israel policy could sway a number of Jewish voters.

As the candidates and their campaigners staged 11th hour rallies and door to door canvassing in Florida, Democrats paid special attention to African-Americans, whose turnout at the polls could be crucial for Kerry.

Black votes were disproportionately represented in the thousands of ballots that were rejected in the 2000 election which Democrats claim Bush stole when the US Supreme Court halted five weeks of recounts.

A major question is whether this will encourage African- Americans to make their vote count this time around, or whether they will believe it's not worth the effort.

Kerry could benefit from a strong turnout since Democrats have more supporters in Florida.

Indications are that Florida could have a record turnout, with about 20 percent of the 10 million registered voters expected to have cast their ballots before the polls even open on Tuesday.

Encouraged by the campaigns to take advantage of early voting that started two weeks ago, voters have waited in line as long as three hours to cast their ballots, while hundreds of thousands of people sent in absentee ballots.

After a few initial glitches, the early voting proceeded smoothly. But controversy raged over the fate of tens of thousands of absentee ballots that forced authorities in Broward county to mail out substitutes.

The Republicans say many voters will have received duplicate ballots, and claim this opens the door to fraud. Bush supporters also alleged that thousands of people are on the Florida voter rolls even though they do not qualify to vote here and that some of them have already cast ballots.

The Democrats, in turn, have accused their rivals of seeking to depress turnout, notably by intimidating voters.

They also claim Republican Governor Jeb Bush - a brother of the president - has failed to fix many of the problems that caused the 2000 "Florida fiasco."

Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler tried to force electoral authorities to attach printers to touch-screen machines so that manual recounts can be conducted if needed. A judge rejected the lawsuit, saying he had no authority to issue such an order, but conceded it would be better to have a paper trail.-AFP