When America goes to the polls on Nov. 4, all eyes will be on Ohio, a classic swing state that is essential to John McCain's election bid and key to Barack Obama's strategy as well.

Republican George W. Bush carried the state's 20 electoral votes in 2000 and 2004, but Democrat Bill Clinton won Ohio in the two previous presidential elections. No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio. That was the case on election night in 2004. After it became clear that Bush had won in Florida, Ohio turned into the key to victory for both sides.

Anticipating a close race, the Kerry and Bush campaigns had both assembled large legal teams to monitor the election in Ohio. The intense scrutiny revealed a number of serious problems, but the Kerry team decided that a recount would be unlikely to change the final outcome: Bush won by a 2 percent margin and was re-elected to the White House.

"In Ohio, there is a cloud over the process, even though there is not a cloud over the result," Ohio State University election law expert Edward Foley told the New York Times at the time.

Long Waits To Vote

Among the worst problems on Nov. 2, 2004, were slow moving voting lines. In many areas of the state, including Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo and on college campuses, election officials allocated far too few voting machines to busy precincts. Many voters reported waits of two to three hours, with isolated reports of seven- to nine-hour lines.

Post-election analysis by Kerry forces found indications that the distribution of voting machines wasn't random. In Franklin County, 27 of the 30 wards that had the most machines per registered voter showed majority support for Bush. Conversely, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines per voter had large majorities for Kerry.

In Ohio, county election boards are bipartisan so distributing voting machines to skew an election would not be easy, said Sarah Cherry, an election law analyst at Ohio State University.

"To my knowledge it was never proven that it was intentional," she said. "But it's pretty obvious that they got the allocation wrong, when urban precincts had long lines and suburban precincts didn't."

Election officials have taken several steps to minimize waits on Nov. 4, Cherry said. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has mandated that all precincts have a supply of paper ballots in case of machine problems or heavy voter turnout, she said. Brunner is also urging people to take advantage of early voting so they won't have to wait on Election Day.

Voting Machines

In 2004, many counties were still using the same kind of punch-card ballots that caused so many problems in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. But other counties used electronic touch screen machines that presented a different set of problems. The New York Times reported one case in which an electronic voting machine added 3,893 votes to the Bush tally in a precinct that has only 800 voters. In Youngstown, 25 electronic machines tallied votes cast for Kerry in the Bush column, according to the Washington Post.

When it comes to voting machines, "We have good news and bad news," Cherry said. All of the punch card machines have been replaced, and all of the electronic touch screen machines record votes on a paper printout, which is the official record and can be used for recounts, she said.

The bad news is that it has been difficult to get hardware and software changes approved by the Ohio election bureaucracy, Cherry said. Some of the underlying glitches on the voting machines remain, but election officials have a list of problems to watch for and steps to take if problems crop up.

"It’s not perfect, but they've taken tremendous steps to address the problems," Cherry said.

Partisan Election Officials

In 2004, Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell was also co-chair of the Ohio Bush re-election effort. This prompted many Democrats to suspect the worst when so many problems arose on Election Day.

Blackwell has since been replaced by Brunner, who ran as a Democrat, Cherry said. Brunner vowed to stay out of partisan politics as secretary of state and is not actively involved in any campaigns this year, Cherry said.

What To Expect On Nov. 4

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry in Ohio by a margin of 118,000 votes. If the latest polls are correct, the race between Obama and McCain could be even closer.

"I think Ohio will still be one of the hottest states. It's going back and forth almost weekly in the polls between the Republicans and the Democrats," Cherry said. "I think people can probably expect long lines again. Only about 10 percent of voters are taking advantage of early voting."

There are bound to be issues with touch screen voting machines, Cherry said, but they probably won't be problems that will affect the outcome of the election.

"When that happens, it often gets blown out of proportion," Cherry said. It may affect several hundred votes, but in the context of a presidential election, it is usually negligible, she said.

"The system is not perfect, but it's better. Voters still have to be pretty vigilant," Cherry said. "People should take advantage of the early voting options and be sure to dot all their i's and cross all their t's."