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Show DAILY HERALD Wednesday. Novefnteri 20M ACROSS THE NATION . . New media throw cstution to the wind While the television networks were busy .," preaching caution Tuesday the Web was already buzzprojectioitt8bthRextpresideTt CNN's Worf ' Bltaer . This could take awhile." warned when the polls were dosing. But blogs bad been slicing and dicing exit poll numbers for . , jhcturs, In 2000, voters turned to television and news informatioa Four ; Web sites for " ' ' Associated Pre yean later, an army of Web pundits made their UnCkc bloggers, the nation't news media have Election underscoring that they're not been forty conservative with analysis. playing by the same rules as traditional Journal- - . Day-debu- ists, Also in the mix were The Daily Show's fake newscast and MTV's rodu'n' election special, , r 'Choose or Lose." Buttoned-dow- n talking heads are no longer the only source of election news. New media offered commentary, premature predictions and, occasionally, bits of news. Networks and newspapers that purchase exit poll data agree not to release information from a particular state until its polls dose. But bloggers dorrt buy the data and didnt abide by those rules. Wrule cable news andvm were biting their tongues, blogs began posting exit poll information Tuesday morning. The data is distributed widely to news organizations, but Web sites . would not say who leaked the information, . Ana Marie Cox, who blogs as Wonkette, said "a . little birdie" told her, "We post these numbers because information wants to be free," she wrote. "Run information! Run for your life!" On the Slate Web site, the numbers were ed throughout the day with several caveats. . : KRT Newspapers Voters Continued from Page 1 Slightly more than 51 percent of voters, about 105.4 million, cast ballots in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al ao Gore. President Clinton's 1996 reelection bid drew only 49 percent of eligible voters, about 96.3 million. But Clinton's 1992 race for the White House against the first President Bush brought out 55.2 percent, about 104.4 millioa In a sampling of states: I In John Kerry's home state,.Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. ' Galvin expected turnout to hit a record high of 3 million. A record 1.7 million Arkansans registered to vote in this year's election, and Secretary of State Charlie-Daniexpected 70 percent turnout. Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land expected about the same percentage of residents to vote as in 2000, but that means more people because registration is up. Battleground Pennsyha- - 7 nia experienced record voter registrations; officials waited to see whether that would translate into record turnout. A record 7.5 million Illinois residents were registered to vote. Dan White, executive director of the State Board of Elections, predicted turnout stronger than the 69 percent in the 2000 presidential election. I A record 12 million Cali-- f ornians were expected to vote. "It's a landslide of people coming out, which is nice," voter Theresa Cocco, 45, a business owner, said outside the Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach. "It renews my faith in society." I Off icials in battleground Wisconsin predicted a 75 percent turnout of eligible voters, up from a little more than 63 percent in 2000. Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, which specializes in voter turnout issues, said the modern record for voter turnout was 1960, when 65 percent of those eligible cast . ballots. els 9i i I His performance with black voters in 2000 was the worst for a Republican presidential candidate since Barry Goldwa-te- r got 6 percent in 1964 in his race against Lyndon Johnson. Kerry also led among Hispanic voters, but the gap was closer and Bush made some progress on that front getting 40 percent of their votes or a bit higher. v lead Kerry had a over Bush with Hispanics Siobhan McDonough , THE ASSOCIATED WASHINGTON PRESS. Republi- cans' hopes that President Bush would improve his standing with black voters came to little or nothing Tuesday, but he did better with Hispanics than four years ago. Bush was doing as poorly with blacks as he did in 2000, getting only about one in 10 of their votes, exit polls indicated. nt about half the margin that Democrat Al Gore enjoyed in 2000. Bush, a former Texas governor, actively courted the Hispanic vote in both presidential campaigns and speaks passing Spanish. Blacks made up roughly the same proportion of voters as in 2000, exit polls suggested. About one in 10 voters was black. The proportion of Hispanic voters rose marginally, to close Incumbent unseated in Indiana Robert Tanner ASSOCIATED PRESS Voters dumped a Democratic governor in Indiana for a Bush adrninistratipn official and forced a Republican incumbent in New Hampshire into a race for his political career as 11 states elected their top leaders Tuesday. In Montana, Democrats took the governor's office for the first time 16 years. In Missouri and Washington state, close contests left each party fighting for the last few votes as ballot counting went on into the night. Elsewhere, incumbents won or the party in power kept control of executive mansions. , In Indiana, former White House budget chief Mitch Daniels unseated Democratic jov. Joe Kernan, who was facing his first test at the polls .since he took office after former Gov. Frank CBannon died last year. In New Harnpshire, with 89 percent of precincts Democrat John Lynch GOP was ahead of one-terGov. Craig Benson by 14,000 votes, or less than 3 percentage points. A close race emerged in Missouri, where Republican Matt , Blunt was ahead of Democrat Claire McCaskiD by less than 3 percentage points. In Delaware, Democratic Gov. Ruth Ann Minner withstood a surprising-- ALTAFFERAssoclated Press minority vote GOVERNORS THE MARY f and Fannia Ibarra, 19, from Raleigh, N.C., chant "Vote of Die" outside the MTV studios in New York as Sean "P. Diddy" ' Combs makes an appearance on MTVyTuesday. P. Diddy spearheaded the campaign "Vote or Die," aimed at drawing youth and minority.voters to the polls. Cecilia Torres, 21, left, Aft you almost expect this to happen," she said. The open seats in Missouri, Montana, Utah and Washington state triggered record spending and unprecedented bursts of money, and the heat of the presidential race had an effect on at least a couple of races. New Hampshire's Benson fought to hold on for a second term against Lyncljjn, a state leaning against Present Bush. In Indiana, a state tbrwent solidly and quickly for Bush, Daniels had the prominent support of the president. Others contests remained olutely local turning on taxes, economic development 'or portation issues. Even before Election Day, dismay over economic problems and other woes over the past few years ted to the ouster of governors in Missouri (where oneterm Democratic Gov. Bob Holden lost in the primary) and Utah (where GOP Gov. Olene Walker lost the nomination at the party convention). Three other governors in Montana, Washington and West Virginia chose not to seek reelection. In Utah, Huntsman, a businessman and Bush administration diplomat, easily beat Scott Matheson Jr., dean of the Uni-- 1 versity of Utah law school and the son of a former governor. te .h rViJVL DARRON CUMMINQS Associated Press Republican candidate for governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels talks to supporters during a victory rally in Indianapolis, Tuesday. Daniels defeated incumbent Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan. ly strong race from Republican Bill Lee to win a second term. Montana Democrat Brian Schweitzer, a farmer who unsuccessfully sought a Senate seat in 2000, defeated Republican Secretary of State Bob Brown in the race for an open seat. .i In Washington state, Democrat Christine Gregoire, the state attorney general, pulled narrow hy ahead of Republican Dino Rossi, with a quarter of precincts reporting. Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. took Utah's open governor's seat, while North Dakota GOP Gov. John Hoeven, Vermont Republican Gov. Jim Douglas and North Carolina Democratic Gov. Mike Easley each won second terms. In West Virginia, Democratic Secretary of State Joe Manchin took an open seat. In Delaware, Minner won despite making what some saw as an insensitive response to a prison inmate's abduction and rape of a counselor. "In prisons, The economy and jobs were important to black voters, cited d of them as the issue by that mattered most. Almost half of blacks said their own family's financial situation was worse than four years ago; only about one in seven said they were doing better. Exit polls were conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. to 10 percent. Kerry won Illinois' 21 electoral votes Tuesday night on the strength of black and Hispanic , support, with whites in the Democratic-leaning state split evenly between Kerry and Bush. one-thir- . The most important candidate quality to Hispanic voters was the ability to bring about needed change about a fourth chose that, and they overwhelmingly backed Kerry. Scattered snafus and dustups, but no widespread problems Deborah Hastings THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Machines malfunctioned, tempers flared and edgy voters often waited hours Tuesday to pick a president in a contentious race watched by thousands of monitors who expected the worst. But by the close of East Coast polls, only scattered focal snafus had been reported in an election turnout that was shaping up to be the heaviest in years. "So far, it's no big, but lots of littles," said Doug Chapin, di- rector of the Election Reform Information Project, a nonpartisan research group. "We know of no major meltdowns anywhere along the lines some people were worried about." About 50 percent of all voters said they were very certain ballots in their state would be accurately counted, according to a national Associated Press exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky InternationaL e appeared to be the order of the day, which in some states prompted poll closures and unfounded complaints. In New Jersey, for example, a suspicious substance lata determined to be spilled salt ' Hyper-vigilanc- closure prompted the two-hoof a Mount Laurel precinct. In Pennsylvania, zealous GOP election monitors complained that some Philadelphia voting machines already had thousands of recorded votes when the polls opened at 7 a.m. Local election officials quickly explained that voting machines registered every . vote ever cast on them like mileage on a car odometer and that did not constitute evidence of fraud. "It's absolutely ridiculous," said Deputy City Commissioner EdSchulgen. In other closely contested states including Iowa and Michigan the liberal group MoveOn.org was accused of disrupting local precincts. In Ohio, a woman filed a lawsuit on behalf of voters who didn't receive absentee ballots on time, asking they be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Later, a Toledo federal judge granted her request. New touch-screevoting machines, criticized by computer scientists and several elections officials as susceptible to hacking and malfunction, were used Tuesday in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Only Nevada has d the machines produce . paper receipts. n man-date- |