ELECTION Voters respond on a day of decision

Nearly 100 people were in line before polls opened at a Virginia site.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The first presidential election since the United States plunged into its epochal war on terrorism was finally handed off to voters today, President Bush declaring the "safety and prosperity of America" is at stake and Democratic challenger John Kerry saying, "the hopes of our country are on the line."
A dizzying final dash across the Midwest and points south capped a campaign that found the contenders deadlocked at every vital turn and stirred expectations that Americans, for once, were highly motivated to vote.
"Today is decision day," Kerry told cheering supporters at an airport hanger in Toledo early today. "You have an opportunity now, this day, to make fundamental change in America, and the hopes of our country are on the line."
By all signs, voters were engaged.
At one polling place in a Virginia suburb of Washington -- where there was no hotly contested local race to spur interest -- nearly 100 people were in line when the polls opened at 6 a.m., in a turnout that one voter said was the largest she had seen in 20 years of voting at the location.
"Every election's important ... but my very survival is an issue, and that never was," said Margie Miller, 55, of Baldwin, N.Y., whose husband Joel died at his 97th-floor desk at the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11 attacks. "All I care about is safety, safety, safety."
Tight race
The final pre-election polls turned up tied -- 49-49 in one CNN-USA Today-Gallup survey, with Ralph Nader at 1 percent. Tight surveys in Florida and a variety of Midwestern states including Ohio deepened the mystery over who would collect the necessary 270 electoral votes.
The nation's first votes cast and counted on Election Day, in the mountain hamlet of Hart's Location, N.H., reflected in miniature what seemed likely to be writ large across the country: a horse race in votes, not just polls.
Following a quirky tradition of post-midnight voting in New Hampshire's North Country, 16 people voted for Bush, 14 for Kerry and one for Ralph Nader. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore 17-13 in the hamlet in 2000.
The prospect of unprecedented legal challenges hung over Election Day, each side sending thousands of lawyers into motion to monitor the flood of newly registered voters and mount hair-trigger challenges against any sign of irregularity.
Final rallies
Bush finished his last campaign with a noisy homecoming rally late Monday night that packed an overflow crowd of 8,000 into a basketball stadium in Dallas, a rare detour off the circuit of battleground states.
His supporters hoped the venue was a lucky charm -- it was the same stadium where he held his last rally in his governor's race 10 years ago, beginning an unbroken string of electoral success.
Kerry stopped in Toledo en route to Wisconsin for the rest of the night. He was flying home to Boston to vote and await a verdict that no one could foretell with confidence.
The policy-laden speeches were finished and so, for the most part, were the character assaults that flew from both sides for weeks.
"Let's go make it happen," Kerry implored a crowd in Milwaukee. Bush and Kerry came within a mile of each other in Milwaukee and the Democrat's motorcade encountered a procession of Bush campaign buses just after the president had split off for Air Force One.
Toned down
Bush toned down the jabs at Kerry during his six-state, seven-stop, 19-hour finale Monday but did not abandon them completely.
"In the course of this campaign, my opponent has spent much of his time talking about the day that is gone," Bush told a Monday night rally in Albuquerque, N.M. "I'm talking about the day that is coming."
The president lost New Mexico and Wisconsin in his 2000 squeaker.
Polls found not only a sizzling contest again this time but a sense among people that this election counted more than others in the recent past. As well, untold millions took advantage of expanded opportunities to vote before Election Day in 32 states.
Altogether, those harbingers raised hopes that voter turnout, usually anemic by comparison with other democracies, would climb.