In a country of 300 million, every vote counts

By RUPERT CORNWELL

With eight days left in the campaign, Democrats and Republicans are mounting a desperate drive to persuade their voters to go to the polls in a Presidential election increasingly overshadowed by charges of intimidation and attempted vote suppression by both parties.

"Go and vote and we're going to make sure your votes get counted," Terry McCauliffe, the Democratic party chairman, urged supporters of John Kerry yesterday as he referred to reports that Republicans plan massive checks of voters at polling stations in Ohio and other battleground states.

Despite high passions on both sides - and a years-long effort by Republicans to mobilise conservative Christian voters -- the rule of thumb remains that the higher the turnout, the better for Democrats.

Every sign is that record numbers of Americans will vote in 2004, certainly more than the 106m in 2000.

Today Democrats wheel out their most effective get-out-the-vote weapon, in the person of Bill Clinton, in his first campaign trail appearance since undergoing heart surgery in early September.

The former President, who can fire the Democratic base as no other will be with Mr Kerry at a rally in Pennsylvania, before travelling on his own to two other closely fought states, Florida and New Mexico.

In particular, Democratic strategists hope Mr Clinton will galvanise black voters, a traditional Democratic constituency which is less enthusiastic about Mr Kerry than it was about Al Gore four years ago.

For their part Republicans are sending Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California and their most glamorous national figure, to Ohio, where polls suggest the Democrat may have taken a fractional led in the chase for the state's 20 electoral college votes.

Ohio indeed is emerging as a potential battleground as contentious and controversial as Florida in 2000. Already Republicans, and to a lesser extent Democrats, have enlisted thousands of party workers to monitor polling stations across the state - ostensibly to ensure that voters are properly registered and eligible.

Democratic leaders however accuse their opponents of deliberately trying to complicate the process of voting, and thus deter first time and poorer voters, and frustrate the massive registration drive mounted by the party this year.

They fear that faced by checks and long queues at polling stations, some who would have voted for Mr Kerry would choose to spare themselves the trouble.

Some of these concerns however may be exaggerated, with Americans casting early ballots in record numbers.

According to the Washington Post (which yesterday endorsed Mr Kerry), over 1.3m people had voted by Friday in eight of the swing states. Some analysts believe that up 20 per cent of all votes may be cast before November 2.

With the vote now just eight days away, there was no rest for the candidates on the penultimate Sunday of the campaign, which every poll says is resting on a knife-edge and where the outcome hinges on a dozen or fewer swing states, where the result will be decided by the turnout.

After crisscrossing Florida on Saturday, President Bush was yesterday in Alamagordo in New Mexico, a state carried by Al Gore in 2000 by just 365 votes, but which republicans hope to capture this time.

Mr Kerry was back in Florida, where the result was decided four years ago, and whose 27 electoral votes may well again be crucial this time.

A new poll by Newsweek puts the President ahead by two points. Most others give Mr Bush a similar or slightly larger advantage, but always within the statistical margin of error.

The latest AP survey however gave Mr Kerry a 49-46 edge among likely voters. As the campaign enters its final week, the independent candidate Ralph Nader is becoming less of a factor.

Most polls give him 1 per cent or less, and he has been denied access to the ballot in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The indications are morever that unlike in 2000 when he is credited with costing Al Gore the election, Mr Nader's support is now drawn from Mr Kerry and Mr Bush in roughly equal measure.

- INDEPENDENT