Polls apart: World hit by voting fever

LENT starts today — a fitting comedown from the hysteria of America’s Super Duper Tuesday, which yesterday tossed pancakes aside to captivate every corner of the world.

Everybody wanted their say, from the 100 voters in Indonesia to the couple of hundred Democrats who arrived drenched, but determined, into O’Neill’s pub on Dublin’s Suffolk Street.

One man was already queuing when Ireland’s designated Democrat voting centre in O’Neill’s opened at 10.30am.

The expats were scrapping for the marginal influence given to Democrats around the globe but news from America indicated every vote mattered.

“I would have voted back in California but couldn’t get my postal vote sorted. I wanted to do it there because that is where it is going to be tight,” said Barack Obama voter Charlie Kranz, who lives in Rathmines.

Last night polls suggested Mr Kranz’s assessment of the tight race for the 370 Democratic and 170 Republican delegates available in the crucial state of California was spot on.

While John McCain was developing a lead across the country, Democrat rivals Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton were battling for every single one of the party’s 4,049 delegates. Even the ex-poll of Irish Democrats carried out intermittently throughout the day could not separate the pair.

“It is half in half. If Barack can do well in Ireland that is a good sign for him, this is where you would expect Hillary to be strong with Clinton’s record,” said pollster Jonathan Nolan from Balbriggan.

He was interviewing enthusiasts young and old, male and female who arrived from across the country.

However, chairman of Democrats Abroad Ireland, Frank Maines, warned that two-thirds of Irish Democrats had opted to vote online and full results were still a week away.

He said this after spending most of yesterday signing off on paper ballots destined for a polling box borrowed from the Dublin returning officer.

The box was given yet another lease of life after supposedly becoming redundant before Ireland’s electronic voting fiasco. For Mr Maines, a California native, it reinforced the sense of home away from home otherwise offered by two star-spangled banners, clumps of coloured balloons and a couple of Democrat election posters.

Back in California a similar e-voting controversy saw the state return to paper ballots.

Coupled with the delayed delivery of absentee ballots this brought the prospect of the count result not becoming clear until later today.

It meant a long night ahead for the political junkies grabbing a slice of the action at the all-night Super Tuesday Party at the Lime Café Bar, Dún Laoghaire.