Analysts point out that even if the commission decided that votes from some polling stations in the Pashtun belt were invalid, Mr Karzai would be the overwhelming beneficiary of the ones still considered valid.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The election this month in which President Daniel Ortega won a third term and a supermajority in Congress may have been marred by irregularities — the European Union's electoral mission called the vote tally "opaque and arbitrary," and observers were blocked from monitoring some polls — but on most TV news channels, things looked different.
Instead, it seems to have narrowed from 2010, with some polls suggesting that Democratic voters are slightly more enthusiastic than Republicans, and other surveys saying the opposite.
And yet, with Mr. Obama increasingly unpopular and "Miss Me Yet?" T-shirts for sale at Washington's Union Station a short walk from the Capitol, some polls suggest a slight softening of views.
That's the take-home message from some recent polls conducted by my polling outfit, Zogby International.
Nouri al-Abar, the head of the election commission, told a news conference that 94% of polling centres nationwide were open but acknowledged that "security conditions" had prevented ballots from reaching some polling centres in some cases, and that ballots had been destroyed in other cases.
Authorities said gunmen prevented voters from entering some polling stations in the eastern oil port town of Ras Lanuf and other centres in the restive south failed to open, but said that Overall, 94 per cent of stations were running normally.
Another police officer in a southern province appears on a video screen warning that clashes with Taliban are preventing election material from reaching some polling centres.
None of this quite explains Paul's collapse, especially considering that some polls from last summer put him in the lead.
Strategists for Mr. Obama worry that the discussions have driven whites away from his candidacy, and some polls this week suggested that his support among whites had fallen off.
