But this year, Pres. Bush appears to have won Florida handily, and to have captured the contest for the popular vote, 51 percent vs. 48 percent.

The U.S. media is also reporting fewer complaints and legal challenges of an election that went hours overtime in some states, due mainly to long voting lines.

Yet, the return homeward of thousands of lawyers who descended on battleground states anticipating 2000-like drama does not mean the election results reflect the intentions of all U.S. citizens who voted, or tried to cast a ballot, Nov. 2.

A coalition of groups, the Economic Human Rights Project, continued Nov. 3 to urge the United Nations to send observers to monitor vote counting—which continues in a handful of states—and to commit to hold a hearing if violations of voting laws appeared widespread.

“While the presidential candidates are concerned about the U.S. becoming a divided nation, we are concerned about the U.S. being a disenfranchised nation—especially for African American, Latino and Native American voters,” said George Friday, of the Independent Progressive Politics Network, in a news release.

“Numbers of early Florida voters had problems getting their computerized votes cast for their chosen presidential candidate (according to National Public Radio and other sources),” continued the statement.

“Most computerized voting problems are likely to become evident only in the next few days and may affect hundreds of thousands of votes, disproportionately likely to affect those with lower literacy rates and communities of color,” it added.

Another group, the Election Protection Coalition, says it received 70,000 calls on voting day (150,000 calls including the days leading up to the contest) from citizens with voting problems. The majority were from people who requested absentee ballots, but never received them, a spokeswoman told IPS.

Others were unsure of their voting location or about identification requirements at the polls, she added.

The coalition’s database details problems reported at local polling stations, including complaints from more than 750 voters in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Country, a Democratic stronghold.

One person seeking a provisional ballot there reported, “alleged precinct judge says training workbook information on provisional ballot ‘affirmation sticker’ procedure conflicts with recent written directive-instruction received from BOE (board of elections). Would not give (the ballot).”

“Three of nine voting machines in the precinct are broken, causing long lines and hour- long waits,” said another complaint. “More than two-dozen voters left without voting, due to the long wait time.”

Many of these potential problem issues were flagged well before Nov. 2.

After a pre-election mission to the United States in September, an arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, invited by the Bush administration to witness the vote, noted “concerns expressed with regard to the right to vote, and the possibility that this right may not be evenly applied or protected throughout the country.”

Among the issues raised by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights were the growing use of electronic voting machines, many of which do not allow for a manual audit and recount, and inconsistencies in the workings of a new “provisional ballot” designed for people whose names are not on a voters’ list.

On election eve, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and two other groups released a report warning, “Too many public and political party officials are trying to discourage and prevent voters from exercising their right to vote, rather than devoting their energies to resolving the kinds of problems that disenfranchised millions of Americans nationwide in 2000.”

“Systemic problems with registration procedures, voter identification, and equipment problems...should engender a nationwide outcry that forces elected officials to muster the political will to establish and maintain standards and accountability safeguards that will protect all American voters in the months and years ahead,” added the report, “Run-Up to Election Exposes Widespread Barriers to Voting.”

The paper, co-published with the People for the American Way Foundation and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, divided the tactics used to intimidate and discourage voters into two groups: those practiced by election officials and others wielded by individuals or party activists.

Among the latter was a fake letter sent to newly registered voters in Lake County, Ohio that said registrations completed by the Kerry campaign or the NAACP were illegal and those people would not be allowed to vote.

Official misconduct, added the report, included an order from Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican appointee, which said local election supervisors must discard registration cards if voters failed to check a box declaring they were U.S. citizens—although in signing the forms they had endorsed an oath reading, “I do solemnly swear ... I am a U.S. citizen.”

The report concluded, “New incidents seem to come to light daily, others almost certainly have remained hidden from public scrutiny, and legal developments are changing hour to hour.”