§ 3. Rounds of Voting. Casting your ballot

Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian opposition leader, will demand a detailed verification of last weekend's presidential vote at each of the country's 32,000 polling stations after officials delayed release of final results that could show him with a first-round lead.

The demand stops short of a full recount but will require that the government publish results from all of the polling stations rather than making public only the larger tallies of the country's 225 districts.

The request comes as¹⁷ the government's Central Election Commission yesterday counted only 3.5 per cent of the vote after having tabulated 94.2 per cent on Monday. The latest results showed Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister supported¹⁸ by Russia and outgoing president Leonid Kuchma, with a narrow lead of 39.9 per cent to Mr Yushchenko's 39.2 per cent.

Most of the uncounted votes, however, are in regions considered strongholds for Mr Yushchenko.

Victory in the first round is symbolic as the presidency will go to the winner of a run-off on November 21 between the two front-runners of the first round.

The US and European Union both criticised the Ukrainian government yesterday for¹⁹ its conduct in the first round of elections, while²⁰ the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States said the violations of campaign rules its observers had seen were minor and did not affect the results.

The sharply differing evaluations are likely to fuel a growing split between the US and the newly expanded European Union on the one side and the Russian-led CIS on the other.

Americans turned out to vote in record numbers in swing states and safe states alike yesterday, standing in long queues across the country to have their say in a close, polarised race that has galvanised the nation after decades of creeping apathy.

The high turnout was an encouraging sign for John Kerry, and his campaign was also buoyed by early exit polls by the television networks which gave him a tiny lead in two of the most closely contested states, Florida and Ohio.

The Democratic party's own early exit polls gave Senator Kerry strong leads in most of the battleground states, but a party official warned that those leads could be overturned if there was very high Republican turnout in the evening.

"What happened in 2000 in Florida is that Democrats voted early and the Republicans caught up in the afternoon," the official said. "We're hoping that the margins are big enough this time to hold off any Republican onslaught in the afternoon."

Pollsters were cautioning last night that the race was far too close to call. "This is going to be a nail-biter. Neither candidate will go gently into that good night. In fact there may be many nights of less than gentle politics," Frank Luntz, a Washington pollster said.

However, by mid-afternoon, there were only sporadic reports of voting problems, contrary to earlier predictions of a meltdown under the pressure of voters and the deployment of lawyers and operatives from both sides to promote their cause at the polling stations.

Republicans in Ohio won an 11th-hour court decision allowing them to post more than 3,000 observers in polling stations across the state, to challenge voter credentials.
3. Romania's government won approval in a weekend referendum for constitutional amendments, but government methods used to get voters to the polls have provoked criticism from independent watchdogs and in the local press.

Preliminary results showed 87 per cent of voters approved the package of amendments that, among other steps, guarantees the right to private property, provides new legal rights for ethnic minorities and trims the powers of the executive branch of government.

Yet only 55 per cent of Romania's 18m eligible voters cast ballots – just above the 50 per cent required for a referendum to be binding.

Yesterday the local press reported a number of voting irregularities, including the alleged misuse of mobile polling stations intended to allow the elderly and disabled to vote from home. Reports also indicated widespread efforts to woo voters with food, drink and in some cases lotteries.

Election officials rejected suggestions the vote was not conducted correctly.

In the lead-up to the referendum, government officials clearly feared a low turnout. Originally scheduled only for Sunday, polling was extended – a week before the vote – to include Saturday.

Yesterday, EU officials declined to comment on the referendum's results before they were made official.
Optional texts
4. Romanian election judged to be valid

Romanian election officials yesterday projected that enough voters had turned out to validate referendum on bringing the constitution in line with European Union law, despite cries of foul play from opposition parties.

Statistical projections showed 54.46 per cent of voters cast ballots in the weekend referendum, touted by the ruling ex-communist party as backing for joining the EU and as a vote of confidence in the government. Romania hopes to join the EU in 2007 with Bulgaria.

Election officials said final figures would not be available until tomorrow.

Millions of Venezuelans turned out to vote yesterday, waiting patiently for hours to take part in a referendum on the rule of President Hugo Chavez, in numbers far exceeding expectations.

Jimmy Carter, the former US president who is heading an observer mission, described the turnout as "the biggest I have ever seen" in more than 50 elections he and his pro-democracy foundation had observed.

As dusk fell over the world's fifth-largest oil exporter long queues wound around the schools and public buildings being used as voting stations from before dawn.

The electoral authorities extended the closing time for polling centres by four hours to 8 pm, after voters complained of delays in being able to cast their vote as untested finger-printing machines intended to prevent double-voting, caused bottlenecks in many areas.

Official results looked unlikely to be released at least until early today, and if Mr Chavez's mandate, which runs until late 2006, is revoked, fresh elections will have to be held within 30 days.

It is unclear whether Mr Chavez would be able to run in such a contest or who would be his opponents. Opposition parties have still to decide ²²whether they would run primary elections to select a candidate.

1. 
   Unless a compromise can be reached, there appears little choice but²³ for the country to go to the polls²⁴ for the third time in four years, a destabilising development Sri Lanka can ill afford in the midst of peace negotiations.
   
2. 
   The Kremlin is thought to be concentrated at the possibility of the turn-out falling²⁵ below 50% and invalidating the vote.
   
3. 
   If there was any sense of panic about polls showing Kerry trailing by as many as eight points or more, the candidate was not letting on.
   

4. 
   Some SPD deputies now believe the only way to break the deadlock is for Germany to hold fresh elections.
   
5. 
   Yet as Mr Bush reached the first 100 days of his second term last weekend, the talk was not of “transformation” but of frustration – and the possibility of a wasted second term.
   
6. 
   As Mr Gbagbo’s supporters danced, literally, in the streets to celebrate his continuation in power, the opposition demanded that the president should become a figurehead, like the queen of England.
   
7. 
   The gap is enough to stop Mrs Merkel forming a center-right government with the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and junior coalition partner the FDP.
   
8. 
   The Shiite list that finished first in Iraq’s elections agreed on Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister as parties continued Tuesday to haggle over the makeup of the next government.
   
9. 
   President Robert Mugabe said Saturday that he hoped to stay in power until he was 100 as he celebrated an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections that all but his supporters and a few African neighbours said were rigged.
   
10. 
    The government was hoping for a high turnout to enhance Mr Mubarak’s democratic credentials.
    
11. 
    If Mr Howard has any doubts about the outcome of today’s election, he did an excellent job of hiding them as he flew across Britain on a final campaign swing.
    
12. 
    Mr Mubarak’s main challengers said that at some polling stations voters were casting their ballots without being properly checked.
    
13. 
    Indeed, it is hard to imagine the new forces accepting another year of Mr Gbagbo, the man they fought to depose, as president.
    
14. 
    Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel vowed to continue campaigning right up until the polls close today, breaking with convention in an electoral race whose outcome was far from clear.
    
15. 
    While the party’s internal polling suggests that Labour is up to six per cent ahead nationally, strategists say the outcome is on a knife-edge in 50 to 60 marginal seats.
    
16. 
    Local observers reported a number of cases of voters casting absentee ballots at multiple polling stations.
    

1. 
   Serbia holds ²⁶elections this Sunday, trying for a third time to elect a new president, after two previous efforts failed because of low voter turnout. Forthсoming parliamentary elections, however, are seen as far more important than the presidential poll, and yesterday's announcement could damage turnout on Sunday.
   
2. 
   People outside the United States could only watch, wait and fume as American lined up to vote Tuesday in an election that provoked an extraordinary degree of emotional involvement beyond U.S. borders.
   
3. 
   Indian voters will go to the polls in early national elections to be held in four stages in April and May, as the coalition Government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seeks to capitalise on a booming economy and peace moves with Pakistan.
   
4. 
   The Chancellor was plainly nervous about the outcome in Hamburg as he sent the new leader of the party, Franz Muntefering into a frenzied fortnight of campaigning.
   
5. 
   How far the Social Democrats will have to pay at the ballot box for their attempt to modernise the engine of Europe is not known.
   
6. 
   In the lead up to the election, the Kremlin worked to ensure high turnout, believing that it would confer added legitimacy on President Vladimir Putin's second term.
   
7. 
   American born and British educated, Papandreou, 51, appeared equally upbeat at the ballot box.
   
8. 
   Enthusiastic voters around the country showed up well before the polls opened Tuesday to cast their ballots in a bitter race for the White House that was too close to call. Some voting experts predicted a turnout of up to 125 million voters – a 20 million increase over 2000.
   
9. 
   Cautious hopes began to rise well before lunchtime, as reports came in of record turnouts in swing states and among young voters and blacks.
   
10. 
    Without such drastic measures the seven Iraqis, who include two women, believe they would have been unable to begin hiring election officials, establishing polling booths and drafting the electoral laws for the 275-member Iraqi National Assembly.
    
11. 
    The conservative camp is confident of success in the elections, believing that a low turnout reflecting public disillusionment will help overturn a majority won by the reformists four years ago.
    
12. 
    Western diplomats bravely insist that other countries have held elections amid violence, pointing out that security measures can be taken, such as moving polling stations in troubled areas such as Fallujah to secure locations.
    
13. 
    Before then, however, Mr Jogi will have to prevail in the ballot booths, tens of thousands of which are being set up in the remotest jungle clearings.
    
14. 
    Mrs Macapagal, an economist favoured by foreign investors and local business, was forecast to win by opinion polls before the voting and by an exit poll afterwards. But partial results of an unofficial "quick count" organised by a television news channel at times gave Mr Рое the lead last night.
    
15. 
    Election officials, even in some states not considered battlegrounds, like Maryland, were predicting historically high turnout rates of 80 percent or higher. Curtis Gans, the director of the non-partisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said as many as 117.5 million to 121 million voters could cast ballots by the end of the day – 58 percent to 60 percent of those eligible. In the last presidential election, turnout was 51.2 percent of the voting age population, or 105.4 million voters, an increase of 2.2 percentage points from 1996.
    
16. 
    Much in American voting machinery and procedures has changed since the contentious election of 2000, which ended in a 36-day dispute centered on the razor-thin Florida result. More than 30 states now allow early voting, to avoid last-minute backups and confusion.
    

1. 
   Mr Koizumi has run a successful US presidential-style campaign, perhaps the first in Japan’s electoral history, in which he has used image and a sense of firm conviction to woo the public.
   
2. 
   A big shock was possible if floating voters – who comprise at least a third of the electorate – turned out en masse to support the opposition party, which has never held power.
   
3. 
   Yet when the exit polls began circulating on Sunday afternoon, pundits were amazed. And the final tally confirmed the upset: the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) came in at only 35.2% of votes, not even a full point ahead of Mr Schröder’s Social Democrats (SPD) at 34,3%.
   
4. 
   Preliminary results in Salzburg Province showed the Freedom Party at less then 10 percent, about half of its previous strength.
   
5. 
   Six voting booths with curtains were set up in the Moscow polling station along with four glass boxes where voters could drop their ballots.
   
6. 
   In theory, nobody was supposed to be talking about exit polls in public. The media organizations that conduct them have a strict policy of keeping them under wraps until polls close, for fear of being accused of influencing the result.
   
7. 
   Sierra Leone’s presidential run-off hit a snag soon after polls opened when 92,000 people were told they were ineligible to vote.
   
8. 
   The Vanuatu Government of Maxime Carlot was toppled by a no-confidence vote in the South Pacific nation’s parliament. Serge Vohor, an opposition coalition leader, replaces him.
   
9. 
   Oscar Berger, the former mayor of the capital, won Guatemala's presidential run-off against Alvaro Colom with 54.1 per cent of the vote. Mr Berger, of the Grand National Alliance, called on his rival to join efforts to overcome the country's problems.
   
10. 
    With a budget of $180 million, the commission is expected to organise up to 9,000 polling stations, each staffed by at least four people.
    
11. 
    Of 106,952,649 registered voters in Russia, 68,119,054 valid ballots were cast and 571,277 ballots were ruled invalid, Veshnyakov said.
    
12. 
    Yushchenko is expected to face a run-off with Kuchma ally Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich at the elections, which analysts expect will go to a second round in November.
    
13. 
    Swaziland will hold its first national vote in five years today, amid a telling absence of election fever.
    
14. 
    The first round of the elections is March 21, with the runoff a week later. The opposition parties hope to use them as a vehicle to assess the strength of the first two years of the president's second term.
    

1. 
   Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's opposition leader, accused election officials of delaying the counting of votes from the first round of presidential elections which he said would give him the lead ahead of a run-off.
   
2. 
   Both top their party lists and are expected to win seats, Mr Milosevic for the Socialists and Mr Seselj for the extreme right-wing Serbian Radical Party. Both are eligible to run because they have not been convicted, although they are unlikely to be able to take their places in parliament for many years.
   
3. 
   With barely 32 per cent of the vote according to reliable exit polls, it lagged well behind the 46.5 per cent of the Christian Democrats.
   
4. 
   Instead of harsh rhetoric, Beijing wooed Hong Kong's voters with promises of economic aid and charmed them by sending all of China's Olympic gold medal-winners on an extended tour of the city.
   
5. 
   Final results would be released next Tuesday or Wednesday, but they would not affect the outcome, he said.
   
6. 
   Among its many difficult decisions are how to register voters in a country that has had neither democratic elections nor a proper census for decades and how to manage a proportional representation system that will turn the country into one huge electoral district with hundreds of candidates on one list.
   
7. 
   This weekend, millions of Russians will elect their next president. Opinion polls universally predict that the vast majority will cast ballots for incumbent president Vladimir Putin.
   
8. 
   The state, along with four others, goes to the polls on December 1 in an exercise that is seen as a dress rehearsal for the national election in 2004.
   
9. 
   Despite her status as the once-beloved daughter of the country's founding father Sukarno, Mrs Megawati also managed only a second-place finish behind Mr Yudhoyono in the five-candidate first round of the presidential elections in July.
   
10. 
    Initial results set off a carnival of celebration that sent a sea of New Democracy supporters to the party’s headquarters in central Athens.
    
11. 
    Both George Bush and Mr Kerry broke with tradition and actively campaigned yesterday. Mr Bush visited campaign volunteers in Ohio before returning to the White House to wait for the returns.
    
12. 
    A day after winning voter approval for constitutional amendments that move the country closer to European Union membership, Romania’s government yesterday forced three senior ministers suspected of initiating or tolerating corruption to resign.
    
13. 
    Two civic watchdog organizations, Pro Democratia and Academia Catavencu, called yesterday for an investigation. They said they might appeal to Romania’s constitutional court to rule on the legality of the referendum.
    

Uribe, a right-winger whose (...) against (...) has made him highly popular, (...) furiously for Colombians to approve the complicated 15-point referendum.

He says it will reduce graft as well as save money for spending on schools and hospitals by limiting government wages.

With 97.3 percent of votes (...) Sunday, only 24.2 percent of the electorate (...) – still falling short of the 25 percent participation necessary for the result (...).

There were repeated reports from (...) in key states of angry disputes and confrontations over the credentials of (...).

From (...) after (...) across the country, voters, (...) and election officials reported unusually (...) most notably in closely fought states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Americans have called the choice between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry one of the most important of their lifetimes.

There was continuing contention Tuesday over how closely political operatives could keep watch at (...) and challenge voters whose credentials they deemed suspect.

Normally, (...) would favor (...) in a presidential election, but both sides this year have mounted costly and extensive voter mobilization drives that made early interpretations risky.

Some (наблюдатели) expect Mr Zhirinovsky's absence from (борьба, соревнование) to give Mr Putin a better chance of an easy (победа в первом туре). The Communists are struggling to find a credible candidate, and at least one senior figure in the party has been quoted in the Russian media as saying that a boycott could be used to try to prevent (явка) from reaching 50 per cent and render the result (недействительный).

Mr Zhirinovsky told his Liberal Democratic Party's congress that he (не будет баллотироваться), although his party's recent success (на выборах в нижнюю палату Думы), or parliament, is widely attributed to his personal performance and charisma. His party sits in opposition in the Duma, but always (поддерживает) the Kremlin. Few expect the little-known candidate chosen by the party to dent Mr Putin's chances.
b)
(Выборы в Ольстере) keeps Trimble guessing
David Trimble faces a nerve-wracking 24 hours before he knows whether he has seen off the threat from Ian Paisley, who has promised to bring down the Good Friday Agreement if his party is declared the biggest Unionist grouping after yesterday's (выборы в) the Stormont assembly.

With rain, strong winds and Champions League football giving voters plenty of excuses to stay indoors, there were fears that apathy might be the real winner, despite a personal (обращение к избирателям) by Tony Blair. A flurry of voters turned up at (избирательные участки) after they opened across Northern Ireland at 7 am, but by mid-morning the number had slowed to a trickle.

All four main parties (все еще вели предвыборную агитацию) yesterday in a desperate attempt to get the vote out, but by late afternoon there was little clear indication of (явка). As in (всеобщие выборы) two years ago, most (наблюдатели) predicted a surge in voters before (избирательные участки) closed at 10pm. The future of Mr Trimble and his Ulster Unlonists depends on how many moderate Protestants, many of whom would normally stay at home, bothered to vote.

(Предварительные результаты) from the 18 sixseat (избирательные округа) are expected by this afternoon, although many of the final seats, which will determine the overall balance of power, will not be declared until tomorrow.

Under the Province's (система пропорционального представительства), votes are transferred once a candidate reaches a certain quota, meaning multiple (пересчет голосов) are needed before all six seats are filled.

V. Translate the headlines.
A.

1. 
   labour’s pride in economy not enough to woo voters
   
2. 
   Many Unable to Cast Their Ballots
   
3. 
   High turnout as divided America goes to the polls
   
4. 
   Election drama boosts turnout
   
5. 
   The weary and wary turn out to cast ballots
   
6. 
   A divided America votes
   
7. 
   A US election, but the rest of the world tunes in
   
8. 
   Cliffhanger
   

1. 
   Watched by Bush’s checkers, Key state goes to the polls
   
2. 
   BJP gains raise chances of early Indian elections
   
3. 
   High turnout in Guatemala polls
   
4. 
   HK poll turnout may hurt government
   
5. 
   Concern over nationalist revival as Serbs go to the polls
   
6. 
   GEORGIA opposition demands fresh poll
   
7. 
   Mexican turnout challenged
   

Всего для участия в голосовании зарегистрировалось около 156 млн избирателей. Гендиректор одного из ведущих социологических агентств США Peter D. Hart Research Associates Питер Харт прогнозировал явку на уровне 55%. Директор Elections Reform Information Project Даг Чэпэн вчера днем заявил «Ведомостям», что по всей Америке у избирательных участков наблюдались очереди и явка явно будет высокой.

Досрочное голосование разрешено в 23 штатах, и, по информации Чэпэна, этим правом в некоторых из них воспользовались до 30% избирателей.
c) Впрочем, погода не повлияла на активность избирателей: очереди, выстроившиеся на всех участках еще до их открытия, были даже длиннее, чем в первом туре. Уже к 11 утра в разных регионах проголосовали от 20 до 30% избирателей, и представители ЦИКа говорили, что явка будет значительно выше, чем в первом туре.
d) К середине дня ЦИК обработал больше 99,38% бюллетеней. Разрыв то сокращался настолько, что казалось, что Ющенко вот-вот победит, то снова увеличивался. В итоге он оказался меньше 3%: 49,42% за Януковича и 46,7% за Ющенко.
e) Исход американской президентской гонки на ее финише еще менее предсказуем, чем на старте. Рейтинги президента-республиканца Джорджа Буша и сенатора-демократа Джона Керри почти одинаковые. И, по мнению экспертов, итоги выборов мало отразятся на отношениях США с Россией и остальным миром.
f) 21 ноября на Украине прошел второй тур президентских выборов. Согласно данным exit pools на 21.00 по московскому времени, премьер Виктор Янукович проиграл лидеру оппозиции Виктору Ющенко (42% против 54%). Между тем, более ранние опросы предсказывали победу Януковича. Опыт первого тура подсказывает: опросам, проведенным в день голосования, верить можно не всегда. Три недели назад, 31 октября, по опросам Янукович лидировал, в итоге же вперед вырвался его конкурент. Центральная избирательная комиссия обещает огласить первые официальные данные – да и то сугубо предварительные – в 3 часа ночи по Киеву (в 4 утра по Москве).

VII. Comment on the cartoon.

a)	b)