In an election that marked the city's highest voter participation rate in at least 12 years, Cambridge overwhelmingly supported Vice President Al Gore '69 on Tuesday.

Cambridge remained a Democratic stronghold in this election, as Gore collected more than 72 percent of the city's votes--well ahead of rival Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 12.95 percent.

But in somewhat of a surprise, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader also outpolled Bush, taking 13.67 percent of the city's 40,014 ballots.

At the six polling locations at which members of the Harvard community were most likely to vote, the results closely followed those of the city as a whole, with Gore taking 74.88 percent, Nader 12.05 percent and Bush 11.99 percent.

These six precincts included all Harvard College dorms, as well as Radcliffe Yard and much of the area surrounding Harvard Square.

According to Teresa S. Neighbor, executive director of the Cambridge Election Commission, the final tally will not officially be reported to the Secretary of State until absentee ballots from overseas are counted. That process should be completed next Friday, Nov. 17.

After shockingly low voter participation in the primaries earlier this year--with just eight percent of registered voters in Cambridge turning out for the September primary--voter turnout was extremely strong on Tuesday.

Neighbor said that 87 percent of Cambridge's "active voters" participated in this election--compared to rates of 86, 84 and 85 percent in the 1988, 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, respectively.