Final count gives Florida to Obama

Updated 1 hour 0 minutes ago

Photo: Mr Obama had 50.01 per cent of the vote in Florida compared to 49.13 per cent for Mr Romney. (AFP: Mandel Ngan)

The completion of vote-counting in Florida has seen US president Barack Obama win the state’s 29 electoral votes.

Florida was the last to report its tally from Wednesday’s poll, giving Mr Obama 332 electoral college votes to 206 for his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

Mr Obama had 50.01 per cent of the vote in Florida compared to 49.13 per cent for Mr Romney, with nearly all ballots counted, according to figures from the Florida secretary of state’s office.

The president’s lead stood at nearly 74,000 votes.

The Democratic party in Florida had declared victory on Thursday and Republicans tacitly conceded defeat.

With the victory in Florida, Mr Obama swept all of the battleground states, with the exception of North Carolina, which he won narrowly in 2008.

Also in Florida, Tea Party-backed US representative Allen West, the firebrand Republican lawmaker known for his blistering attacks on Mr Obama and other Democrats, lost his re-election bid, according to the state’s latest vote tally on Saturday.

However, Mr West, a 51-year-old former army officer, has not conceded defeat to his Democratic challenger, Patrick Murphy.

He said there were voting irregularities and has called for a partial recount.

The complete but unofficial vote count showed Mr Murphy, a 29-year-old political newcomer, defeated Mr West by 2,442 votes.

On Friday, a Palm Beach County judge rejected a request by Mr West to impound voting machines and ballots.

Florida was the scene of an historic fight over ballot counting after the 2000 presidential election, when the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that George W Bush should be awarded the state’s electoral votes and the presidency.

The delay in finalising Florida’s result this year did not affect the national outcome but raised concerns that some of the problems in 2000 had not been resolved 12 years later.
ABC/Reuters

Topics:us-elections, united-states

First posted 1 hour 8 minutes ago