Ohio Overtime

It is 2 a.m. right now. We still do not know who will run the country in the next four years. It appears that it may be up to Ohio alone to determine the winner of the 2004 presidential election. It is just as interesting to watch the projections of all the major networks. While MSNBC and Fox News have projected Bush as the winner of Ohio, CNN and ABC are playing it safe by projecting Ohio as being "too close to call". And CBS is showing a rerun of Frasier.

If Ohio is indeed too close to call once all the votes are counted, the world will have to wait at least 11 days before Ohio begins counting the remaining provisional ballots. It will be a very long and hard wait. With Bush currently leading Ohio by around 100,000 votes, I think it will be a very tough comeback for Kerry to make up the difference from the provisional ballots. Then again, the Red Sox did come back from a 0-3 losing streak to overtake the Yankees. But if Bush ends up sweeping enough of the remaining states, Kerry will have zero chance of winning even with Ohio swinging to the left.

The only sure thing at this moment is uncertainty. We certainly will not find out the winner until sometime later today. It is just as likely we may have to wait another 11 days.

Below are screenshots taken from CNN showing the vote counts in Ohio at 2 a.m.