The election will turn on a recount in Florida.Though television networks earlier had projected that Mr George W. Bush had garnered 271 electoral votes, one vote more than necessary to win, those projections were retracted as results from late precincts in Florida narrowed his margin in the state to only about a thousand votes.

It was the second time network projections for Florida had changed. On Tuesday evening, the state was put in Mr Al Gore's column only to be pulled back.

As final votes were counted into Wednesday, the lead in Florida's popular vote switched back and forth between the candidates, tilting most recently ever so slightly for Mr Bush, with a margin of 1,655 votes. However, an unknown number of absentee ballots have yet to be counted.

Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was garnering about 97,000 votes, or 2% of the vote. That would be more than enough to push the state safely into Mr Gore's column, but there's no assurance the consumer advocate's supporters would have voted at all, let alone pulled the lever for Mr Gore.

Nationally, Mr Gore and Mr Bush each had about 48% of the vote, with the vice president slightly ahead, after 99% of precincts reported. The vice president had a 260-246 lead in the Electoral College. In addition to Florida, Oregon remained too close to call Wednesday.

In Florida, election officials prepared for a recount. The state's election law requires an automatic recount if the margin of difference is less than one half of 1%, unless the losing candidate declines to call for a recount.

The margin that would trigger the recount with an election of just under six million votes, is slightly less than 30,000 votes. State Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who is Mr Gore's Florida campaign chairman, said on NBC's "Today" show that he hoped for conclusive results "as rapidly as possible - hopefully today or tomorrow."

"Right now it appears, whether Florida wants to be here or not, we're the state that is going to determine who the next president of the United States is going to be," Mr Butterworth said.

The vice president's campaign chairman, William Daley, said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher would oversee the recount for the Democrats.

The Wall Street Journal