Courts might have the last say

As the tight White House race headed for what could be a photo finish tomorrow, analysts warned that Americans might once again have to wait weeks before knowing who their president will be.

"This could be another election decided by judges," warned Paul Sracic, chairman of the political science department at Youngstown State University, in Ohio.

President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney need at least 270 electoral votes in order to win the White House.

Though recent polls show Obama with an advantage in most of the battleground states, the lead is narrow and polls don't always get it right. If a victory for either candidate ends up hinging on a single state it is likely to be Ohio.

The Supreme Court had to decide the 2000 election when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but George W Bush won the electoral college - by such a narrow margin in Florida that it sparked a recount and massive legal battles over the infamous "hanging chads".

Four years later, Bush won a second term after fewer than 119000 votes in Ohio gave him a small electoral college advantage. The problem this year is that there could easily be that many provisional ballots cast in Ohio, where state law prohibits officials from starting to count until 10 days after the election. About 20000 of more than 1.3-million absentee ballots mailed have not yet been returned, the Ohio secretary of state's office said on Saturday.

In an effort to avoid the mess of 2004 - when thousands of voters waited hours in the cold to vote - Ohio election officials sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in the state.

The aim was to cut down on lines and make it as easy as possible for people to vote.