New Mexico and Iowa have, effectively, been placed in suspended animation until sometime mid-morning Wednesday.
At the time of writing this report, 1480 out of 1495 precincts have reported in New Mexico. President George W Bush has polled 333,525 votes to John Kerry's 322,571 votes a lead, for the president, of 10,054.
Which would on paper be enough except for a little spanner in the electoral works that goes by the name of 'provisional ballots'.
When a voter attempts to cast his vote and election officials find his identity insufficient, or are unable to trace his name on the rolls, they issue a provisional ballot to the voter. This lets the voter exercise his franchise with the proviso that the vote will be validated only after his identity, and the legitimacy of his claim to vote, have been investigated.
In New Mexico, election officials indicate there are over 20,000 provisional ballots that need to be validated and counted almost double the amount of votes Bush is leading by. New Mexico, thus, has suspended counting, and will declare only sometime on Wednesday after the provisional ballots are scrutinized, validated, and counted.
In Iowa, 2069 precincts out of 2079 have reported. Bush has polled 738,394 votes to Kerry's 723,760 a lead, for the incumbent, of 14,634 votes. However, an estimated 60,000-plus absentee ballots (essentially votes sent in by people registered in Iowa but currently living elsewhere) remain to be counted. Again, given the number of absentee ballots is way more than the lead Bush now enjoys, an official declaration will not be possible until those votes are validated and counted.
Election officials in the state have thus suspended operations, arguing that counting officials are fatigued and will resume work on Wednesday morning.
Compounding the confusion is a breakdown of voting machines in Green County, which leaves several thousand votes from that area uncounted. The manufacturers are expected to furnish new machines by late afternoon-early evening Wednesday, at which the county will finish counting its votes.
New Mexico has 5 Electoral College votes, and Iowa has 7. While indications are Bush will take both states, there is an outside possibility of a late reversal.
For those looking for straws in the wind, there is this: a record 18,800 absentee ballots, cast in statehouse races favoured Democrats by a 2-1 margin, allowing the party to carry two fiercely contested races for the state assembly and two of three open seats on the Black Hawk County's board of supervisors.
In any case, with these two states suspending operations and Ohio put on hold for an unspecified duration, there will be no official declaration of the final outcome for at least the next 10 hours that is, till mid to late afternoon Wednesday at the earliest.