Iowa Now Officially Listed In Gore’s Victory Column

In one of the most closely contested states in the U.S. presidential election, Iowa on Monday officially declared Vice President Al Gore the winner by 4,144 votes, the Iowa secretary of state’s office said.

It said that the state’s election canvassing board officially certified the vote, which means that Gore, the Democratic candidate, will get Iowa’s seven electoral votes.

The final vote was 638,517 for Gore and 634,373 for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican nominee. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received 29,374 votes, or just more than 2% of the ballots cast. Nader’s showing is significant, because it means the Green Party now will have official standing in the state under Iowa law.

The Gore victory has been known unofficially for weeks. The Bush campaign decided last month not to ask for a recount in Iowa even though the election was one of the closest in history there.

While Florida received the most attention because its 25 electoral votes will decide the presidential outcome, Iowa was one of a handful of smaller states where the margin between the candidates also was exceptionally close. Gore also won New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin by extremely small margins.

In New Mexico, the state’s election canvassing board was advised Monday its work was finished last week when it certified Gore as winner of the state’s five electoral college votes and that it cannot take any action when it meets today.

There is “nothing more as a matter of substantive law that the board can or should do now,” Democratic Atty. Gen. Patricia Madrid said in a letter to Republican Gov. Gary Johnson and the canvassing board’s two other members.

Johnson called for the meeting as a follow-up to a meeting at which the board agreed to certify the statewide election results pending changes from Roosevelt County, where a 10% undervote in the presidential race uncovered a computer programming error.

Roosevelt County updated its tallies to include previously uncounted votes for president, and the canvass is “final and complete” as of last week when Gore had a 368-vote statewide lead over Bush.