Florida was considered an imperative state to win, but it wasn’t until four full days afte

r the election that the state finally announced its results. President Barack Obama carried 50 percent of the popular vote, while Republican candidate Mitt Romney took 49.1 percent. Obama’s margin of victory over Romney in the electoral college was large, with 332 to 206 electoral votes, respectively.

It's important to probe Florida’s hold up, because there appears to be some structural issues within the voting system, said Jason Husser, assistant director of the Elon University Poll. Florida is also difficult to call as quickly as other states, such as California, because the results were so close, he said.

“My sense is that Florida was the one surprise in the typical averages from polls,” he said.

This year, pre-election polls were extremely accurate in predicting the ultimate results. Before Election Day, polls suggested Romney would be up just 0.7 percent in Florida, a number Husser said he considered meaningless.

“At that level, surveys aren’t an indicator,” he said.

This is the narrowest presidential victory in the last three presidential elections in Florida. In 2008, Obama beat out Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by 2.5 percent in the Sunshine State, and in 2004, there was a 5 percent difference between incumbent President George W. Bush and challenger Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.. This year, Obama won by slightly less than 74,000 votes, which is comparable to half the population of Alamance County.

Florida’s voting practices and regulations have been under a great amount of scrutiny, especially since the 2000 presidential election, when Bush defeated his opponent, Al Gore, by less than 600 votes, and allegations of miscounts caused weeks of tension and recounting before the United States Supreme Court finally called an end to it.

“I find it somewhat humorous since we messed up a couple years ago,” said junior Hunt Cable, a Florida citizen.

Shortly after Election Day, Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued an order to investigate what happened on Election Day when it took some voters more than four hours to cast a ballot. He has yet to speak about the excessive time the counting process seemed to take.