USA: ELECTION DAY

NY Times: With Echoes of 2000 Vote, Ohio Count Is at Issue

President Bush swept to an apparent popular-vote victory over Senator John Kerry last night, and seemed headed toward winning enough Electoral College votes to assure his re-election.

But in what was shaping up as a Midwest replay of 2000, Mr. Kerry's campaign challenged the results in Ohio and said it would not abandon the campaign until all the votes in that critical state were counted

An evening of confusion - and deflation for Mr. Kerry's aides and Democrats across the country - caused in no small part by surveys of voters leaving the polls, which showed Mr. Kerry leading Mr. Bush by as much as 3 percentage points nationally. With 86 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Bush was leading Mr. Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent.