Election Name: | Timeline of the 2004 United States presidential election |
Country: | United States |
Type: | presidential |
Ongoing: | no |
Previous Election: | Timeline of the 2000 United States presidential election When did Kerry announce his run for president |
Previous Year: | 2000 |
Next Election: | Timeline of the 2008 United States presidential election |
Next Year: | 2008 |
The following is a timeline of events during the 2004 U.S. presidential election:
See also: October surprise.
This page contains a timeline of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. For a more in-depth discussion of the candidates and issues at stake in that election and the campaign history leading up to election day, see U.S. presidential election, 2004. For information on other races conducted the same day, see U.S. Senate election, 2004 and U.S. House election, 2004. For an explanation of the U.S. presidential election process see U.S. Electoral College.
The U.S. presidential election occurred on November 2, 2004. However, as in the 2000 U.S. election, the election was too close for a winner to be declared that night. By the next morning, the Republican campaign was declaring a victory while the results in several states remained too close for the media to declare winners. Soon afterward the Kerry campaign decided that there were not enough uncounted votes in Ohio for them to win that state and Kerry telephoned Bush to concede. At 2 p.m. EST, Kerry held a news conference announcing the same. An hour later, Bush held his own to accept his victory.
In Ohio, the Libertarian and Green parties raised $113,600 necessary to fund a recount of the popular vote, which took place in early December and upheld the Bush victory in that state.
Start of count of provisional ballots in Ohio. By Ohio law, provisional ballots are counted starting 10 days after the election.
As of November 10, there were 31,515 reported incidents of voting problems nationally, with approx. 350 new incidents being reported a day. One-third of the problems (12,074) involved voter registration, followed by "polling place inquiries" (7,073), absentee ballot-related problems (3,218) and machine problems (1,599). The latter included complaints that some machines registered votes for George W. Bush when the voter selected John Kerry.[122]
Some allege that voting locations that used electronic voting machines that did not issue a paper receipt or offer auditability correlate geographically with areas that had unilateral discrepancies between exit poll numbers and actual results. Exit polling data in these areas show significantly higher support for Kerry than actual results (outside the margin of error). Some are concerned that, from a statistical perspective, this may be indicative of vote rigging, because the likelihood of this happening by chance is less than 1 in 50,000.[123] Others point out this could be explained by poor exit polling techniques or all discrepancies may be within the margin of error.[124]
The first map shows the counties that voted democratic in the 2004 election. The dark blue counties are the most densely populated counties in Florida. The second map shows the Florida counties where absentee voting problems were reported. Orange counties had between 10 and 100 reported problems. The third map shows the Florida counties that use touch-screen electronic voting machines in red. The fourth map shows the Florida counties in which machine problems were reported. Incidents reports for Palm Beach, Broward County, Miami-Dade, and others are available at.[125]
The above map shows all reported election incidents. The dark red states have over 1,000 reported incidents, red states have >100, orange have >10, yellow have >1. An interactive map is available at voteprotect.org.
These are links to maps:Timeline of Poll Closings and Network Calls map,BBC News map, CBC News map, CBS News map, CNN.com map, Fox News map, NPR News map, The New York Times map
Map Legend: Unless otherwise noted on results maps the color red represents the Republican Party, and the color blue represents the Democratic Party.
Each state submitted their official election results to the president of the Senate and the National Archivist. The following results are from these Certificates of Ascertainment.
|
Third Party Totals (other) | |||||
Others | Votes | Vote % | |||
Ralph Nader (Reform, Independent) | 394,578 | 0.34% | |||
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) | 371,820 | 0.32% | |||
Michael Peroutka (Constitution) | 127,752 | 0.10% | |||
David Cobb (Green) | 102,797 | 0.07% | |||
Leonard Peltier (PFP) (only on ballot in California) | 21,616 | 0.03% | |||
Walt Brown (SPUSA) | 10,107 | 0.01% | |||
Roger Calero / James Harris (Socialist Workers) | 5,244 | <0.01% | |||
Bill Van Auken (Socialist Equality) | 2,078 | <0.01% | |||
None of these (option in Nevada) | 3,379 | <0.01% |
Colorado Amendment 36 | ||||
Position | Votes | Vote % | ||
Yes (proportional split) | 355,712 | 34.10% | ||
No (remains winner-take-all) | 686,431 | 65.90% |