[media-credit name=’Derek Montgomery’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]After months of campaigning, it all boils down to this: one day, 50 states and 538 electoral votes.

Or perhaps just one day, six states and 90 electoral votes.

If states were cards, President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry tipped their hands months ago, campaigning vigorously in certain spots while all but ignoring others.

With Election Day now here, most experts say those coveted swing states will determine Bush and Kerry’s fate. Most polls show Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and New Mexico too close to call, with a handful of others leaning for one candidate but still up for grabs.

“There’s a tilt in Minnesota, New Hampshire and Nevada, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go either way,” University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin said, adding three other closely contested states to the list of battlegrounds.

Of the swing states, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania own the bulk of the electoral votes, meaning if one candidate is able to win all three, he is all but assured of victory. Failing a sweep, the winner of two of the big states will have a firm advantage in the electoral vote tally.

“Given what he’s got now, if Bush wins Florida, Ohio and one other [disputed] state, he’s got [the election],” UW emeritus professor of political science Charles O. Jones said.

Many of the states have shown a slight lean for one candidate — Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa for Bush, Ohio and Pennsylvania for Kerry — but often when a candidate gets too comfortable in one state, a poll tosses past projections out the window.

A Gallup poll released Monday gave Kerry a three-point lead in Florida, an eight-point lead in Minnesota and a four-point lead in Ohio while giving Bush a two-point lead in Iowa, a four-point lead in Pennsylvania and an eight-point lead in Wisconsin.

While the list of swing states has been whittled down throughout the last few weeks, a surprising new battleground emerged from the woodwork in the last week. Due to travel logistics and a Democratic electorate, Hawaii traditionally receives little attention during presidential elections — at least until a recent visit from Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Bush campaign claims the state is very much up for grabs, thanks to a Republican governor, a strong economy and a large contingent of military voters. But despite Cheney’s rare foray to the Aloha State, Franklin does not anticipate Kerry losing his grasp on the state’s four electoral votes.

“I hope [Cheney] got a good tan while he was there, because it will be an amazing moment if Hawaii goes Bush,” Franklin said, adding that if Bush does claim Hawaii, the national trend will almost certainly win him four more years in the White House.

Undecided voters may hold sway over the final election results. The Gallup poll allots undecided voters to Kerry, turning a 49-47 percent advantage for Bush nationwide into a 49-49 dead heat.

But while undecided voters tend to break for the challenger late in the campaign, Jones cautions such a trend may not hold this year.

“Because the central issue is the war in Iraq and the war on terror, the [lean toward the challenger] could be more moderate,” Jones said. “Studies suggest the percentage going to the challenger is too high anyway, because lots of late undecided voters end up not voting.”

Possibility of no winner looms

Both campaigns are bracing for a possible repeat of 2000, when Bush triumphed over Al Gore only after a protracted legal battle.

In accordance with campaign finance laws, Bush and Kerry have not accepted general campaign contributions since their respective parties’ national conventions — a stipulation resulting from both candidates’ decision to accept public campaign financing.

They have, however, accepted donations to General Election Legal and Accounting Compliance funds. The Federal Elections Commission allows campaigns to use the special funds for the administrative and accounting expenses of a campaign.

Should a winner again fail to emerge election night, Bush and Kerry will use their GELAC accounts to pay for recounts or other legal wranglings.

Although both campaigns have expressed confidence the election will produce an immediate winner, Franklin said it’s not all that unlikely history will repeat itself.

“This year’s polling is closer than 2000, so by that standard it doesn’t look good for the race to be settled [tonight],” Franklin said.

If any state is to emerge as this year’s Florida, it may well be Colorado, where the most influential vote residents cast may not be for president, but for Amendment 36.

The controversial proposition would reapportion the state’s electoral votes from the current winner-takes-all format to a proportional representation allotment. Supporters argue the retroactive amendment would allocate the state’s electoral votes in a manner more in line with all voters in the state.

But Katy Atkinson, director of Coloradoans Against a Really Stupid Idea, says Amendment 36 would be “electoral suicide” for Colorado because all but the most lopsided of elections would split the state’s nine electoral votes 5-4.

Such would likely be the case this year in Colorado, where Bush has enjoyed a narrow but consistent lead. If the polls prove accurate and the measure is approved, Bush would be awarded five electoral votes and Kerry four.

Such an allocation could conceivably tip the election from a definitive winner to mass chaos. If Colorado approves Amendment 36 and the resulting shift of electoral votes determines the election, Franklin said the race is nearly certain to find its way to the Supreme Court.

Atkinson said momentum in the state seems to be in favor of striking down the proposal.

Despite the presence of potential hitches like Colorado’s Amendment 36, Jones is confident the nation will pick a clear winner today.

“For sure it is very tight, but a lot of ink was spilled over 2000 and I don’t believe we’re going to have a repeat of that election,” he said.