The Dutch election is tied, joining a list of memorable close contests. Here are a few others

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An unprecedented neck-and-neck race in the Dutch general election has left a far-right party and the centrists tied with nearly all votes counted Thursday.

The near total vote count showed anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom and D66 each winning 26 seats in Wednesday’s election, according to the vote count tallied and published by Dutch national news agency ANP and cited by Dutch media.

The nail-biting finish is expected to lead to delays in starting the process of forming a new coalition, which is likely to take weeks or months in the splintered Dutch political landscape.

While the 2000 U.S. presidential race remains arguably the most memorable close contest, the Dutch are making headlines of their own: No election in the Netherlands has previously ended with two parties tied for the lead.

Here are examples of some tight elections in the U.S. and Europe:

It took five weeks of Florida recounts and court battles in 2000 before Republican George W. Bush prevailed over Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes for the U.S. presidency.

The Florida recount demanded by the Gore campaign famously centered on problems with outmoded punch-card ballots with canvassers trying to figure out a voter’s intent amid ballots with “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads” on the cards.

Using punch card ballots in some counties, voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some didn’t press hard enough, leaving hanging or dimpled chads that had to be examined by hand, a long and tiresome process.

The case wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which halted the recount and handed the presidency to Bush.

Conservative Karol Nawrocki’s victory in the Polish presidential race earlier this year revealed deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union.

Nawrocki, who was supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%, according to the runoff's final results.

Most day-to-day power in Poland rests with the prime minister, chosen by the parliament. However, the president holds the power to influence foreign policy and veto laws.

A center-right alliance led by the Social Democratic Party meant it won Portugal’s 2024 general election by just two seats in the 230-seat National Assembly, Portugal’s parliament. The center-left Socialist Party placed second with 78 seats.

The hard-right Chega (Enough) party collected 50 seats, up from 12 seats in a 2022 election, in a staggering surge that upended traditional politics in Portugal, where the Social Democrats and Socialists have alternated in power for decades.

The government only lasted a year.

Ireland’s 2020 election ended with the three biggest parties neck-and-neck: Fianna Fail with 38 seats, Sinn Fein with 37 and Fine Gael with 35.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, bitter opponents whose roots lie in opposing sides of the civil war that followed Ireland’s independence from the United Kingdom, had never before formed a government together.

They ended up forging a coalition, shutting out left-wing nationalist party Sinn Fein even though an electoral breakthrough that saw it win the largest share of the votes in the election. Despite coming out ahead, Sinn Fein was unable to assemble enough support to govern.

The two centrist parties have long shunned Sinn Fein because of its historic links to the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland. But in protracted negotiations further complicated by the COVID-19 outbreak, the two rival centrist parties opted for unity.

In 2005, center-right opposition leader Angela Merkel emerged from a German parliamentary election with a wafer-thin advantage after a campaign that she had started with a huge poll lead.

Then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who had eaten into Merkel’s lead with a strong campaign, made way for her as chancellor only after initially claiming the right to continue leading Germany — and securing his Social Democrats half the seats in her Cabinet.

Conservative party leader Constantine Mitsotakis was only able to form a government in 1990 after aligning his New Democracy party's 150 seats with the small Renewal Party, which earned one seat.

That single seat allowed Mitsotakis to secure 151 of 300 seats in the parliament to form a slim majority.

FILE - Newly elected German chancellor Angela Merkel, left, is congratulated by her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, right, as lawmakers Norbert Roettgen and Michael Glos, background right, look on after her election in the parliament in Berlin, on Nov. 22, 2005. (AP Photo/Fritz Reiss, File)

FILE - Luis Montenegro, leader of the center-right Democratic Alliance, center, and his wife Carla, at left, gesture to supporters after claiming victory in Portugal's election, in Lisbon, on March 11, 2024. AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)

FILE - Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki gestures at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, on June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

FILE - Broward County canvassing board member Judge Robert Rosenberg using a magnifying glass to examine a disputed ballot at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 24, 2000. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File)

A man casts his ballot at the Kromhout shipyard museum, which is operating as a polling station, during general elections in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

ATLANTA (AP) — Three inmates who escaped from a jail east of Atlanta, including a murder suspect, commandeered a terrified Lyft driver's car to reach south Florida before she was rescued and they were captured, according to details revealed in court records.

The driver told FBI agents that the men used a fake name to order the ride, put a rope around her neck from behind her, dragged her into the backseat and threatened to kill her, according to a court affidavit filed late Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press.

The inmates were able to “compromise” a portion of a cell inside the DeKalb County Jail to make their escape, said DeKalb County Chief Deputy Temetris Atkins. He didn't provide more specifics because jailers don't want other inmates to know the facility's weaknesses.

“We repaired the area that was compromised, and we’re looking at other areas that are similar to that to fortify them to make sure that they are not compromised in the same manner,” Atkins said at a Tuesday news conference.

DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox described the jail as an “aging facility that’s deteriorating right before our eyes.” The jail is in Decatur, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of downtown Atlanta.

The escape was discovered early Monday during a routine security check, authorities said. After jailers realized the three were gone, investigators listened to recordings of conversations they'd had on recorded phone lines. They learned that one of the inmates had contacted people on the outside who helped them evade capture after the escape, U.S. Marshal Thomas Brown said.

The inmates were picked up by an unnamed man and taken to one of their girlfriends’ homes, Brown said. Then, a Lyft ride was ordered using a fake, female name.

Officers tracked the car as it traveled to south Florida with the aid of license plate readers, devices that can alert law enforcement to the locations of wanted vehicles. When they caught up with the car and tried to stop it, one of the inmates jumped out and ran but was arrested along with a second inmate, according to a court affidavit.

Investigators also learned that the men used the Lyft driver's credit card for a short-term rental of a home in Miramar, Florida, where officers apprehended the third inmate and rescued the driver, court records state.

The driver told investigators that she was held in the car for six to 10 hours as they tried to gain access to her phone and online banking records. After trying to escape once, she endured “increased threats of being shot, raped, and tortured,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.

“As you can imagine, the Lyft driver is very traumatized by this,” Brown said.

All three inmates were charged with kidnapping as well as the escape, according to criminal complaints.

A lawyer with the Federal Public Defender's Office in Fort Lauderdale appointed to represent one of the men, 24-year-old Stevenson Charles, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday evening, nor did a Miami attorney representing a second, Naod Yohannes, 25. There was no lawyer listed in court records for the third, Yusuf Minor, 31.

Charles was being held before the escape on charges including murder and armed robbery. The other two faced charges including armed robbery and arson.

The sheriff’s office had warned that the men might be armed and were considered dangerous after their escape.

Before they were captured, federal authorities had issued particularly strong warnings advising the citizens to be wary of Charles, who has had several run-ins with law officers in Georgia and Florida. He had been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of kidnapping and bank robbery, a federal agent wrote in a Monday affidavit regarding the recent jail escape.

After being sentenced, the agent wrote, Charles was turned over to DeKalb County authorities on Dec. 5 to face the murder charge, details of which were not immediately available.

In one of multiple cases involving Charles in South Florida, he is accused of meeting a man through the Grindr online dating application and then pulling a gun on him when they met in person at a Miami residence in 2022. Charles then drove the man to various Miami area banks, withdrawing money from the victim’s accounts, court records show.

DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox speaks to journalists Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, during a news conference in Decatur, Ga., about the escaped inmates who were captured late Monday. (Ben Gray /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox speaks to journalists Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, during a news conference in Decatur, Ga., about the escaped inmates who were captured late Monday. (Ben Gray /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

U.S. Marshal Thomas Brown speaks to journalists Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, during a press conference in Decatur, Ga., about the escaped inmates who were captured late Monday. (Ben Gray /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)