MIAMI, Oct 18: Courted by the candidates, some Florida residents headed to the polls on Monday in early voting instituted after electoral chaos in the state held up the 2000 presidential election for five weeks.

Early voting got under way on Monday and will continue until Nov 1, the eve of Election Day.

President George W. Bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry have both pressed voters to take advantage of the early voting, and are focusing much of their energy on the battleground state.

"If you vote early now, we don't have to stay up late on Tuesday night on November 2, I want you to get out and get the job done," Kerry told senior citizens at a rally in West Palm Beach Monday.

Some of the campaign minibuses lined up outside the retirement community, where the rally was staged, bore the words: "Early vote Express".

Voting rights groups have joined the candidates in urging people to vote early, or to cast absentee ballots, saying that this would give more time to file legal challenges if the need should arise.

In downtown Miami, about 100 people waited in line at lunchtime to vote at one of 17 polling stations around the city. "This should reduce the probability that my vote is not counted," said Chris Albury.

Albury, a 45-year-old systems analyst, said he'd been waiting in line for over an hour, but didn't mind a bit. More than half the 50 US states have early voting, and Florida adopted the system after its 2000 electoral chaos.

Legal wrangling in Florida held up the last presidential election for 36 days, and left many Democrats claiming the Republicans stole the vote when the US Supreme Court ordered a halt to vote recounts, leaving Bush with a 537-vote lead over Al Gore in Florida, which gave him the presidency.-AFP