Article content

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney raced from one battleground state to another in the final day of campaigning before Election Day, but the battle may rest in the hands of lawyers.

Nationwide polls show the two locked in one of the closest, and most expensive, presidential races in recent U.S. history. The hard-fought contest has laid bare one of the most polarized American electorates in decades choosing between very different paths for the world’s most powerful country. Uncertainty over the outcome weighed on investors worldwide.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Lawyers in Ohio, Florida already wrangling over votes ahead of Election Day Back to video

But even before polls opened, legal skirmishes were breaking out in Ohio and Florida as both sides argued over voter identification laws, raising the spectre of the protracted legal battles that followed the 2000 election.

In New Hampshire, there were reports of voters not receiving requested absentee ballots, while in Iowa some got them despite not asking.