Florida. After lagging narrowly in the polls for several weeks, John Kerry's acquired a narrow 50 percent to 49 percent lead, according to an October 17 poll conducted by Survey USA. Under the circumstances, the "ground game" -- get-out-the-vote efforts and legal and other battles to get votes counted -- will likely be decisive and are, in fact, already under way. So-called early voting began on Monday, and problems are already popping up. Orange County's computers crashed briefly, blocking access to the list of registered voters. Several Broward Country polling places were unable to link their computers to the database that was supposed to be used to verify voter eligibility, forcing election workers to rely on paper lists and calls to the supervisor's office to get by.
