US election over but final Florida results still not in
By REUTERS
MIAMI - Americans gave US President Barack Obama a second term in office, but it still wasn't clear early on Wednesday whether the president won the key battleground state of Florida.The vote in the state, which introduced the terms "hanging chads" and "butterfly ballots" to the masses in its historic 2000 presidential election, was too close to call long after Republican challenger Mitt Romney conceded his loss.Early Wednesday morning Obama was edging out Romney by about 45,000 votes, or 0.53 percentage points, out of a total of 8.27 million votes cast in Florida, with about 99 percent of the votes counted."It's 1:42 in the morning and I just heard there are still people voting in Miami-Dade County," tweeted Chris Cate, spokesman for Florida's Secretary of State, who is responsible for elections. "Kudos to their commitment to voting!"The head of elections for Florida's Miami-Dade County, which accounts for about 10 percent of the state's 12 million registered voters, said final results would not be available until Wednesday afternoon.Until then, it may not be totally clear whether Obama won the state, which he carried in 2008.
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