The Presidential Election of 2000

The Bush Vs. Gore campaign was at its climax in late October of 2000.

The people of the nation were casting their votes, and the two leading candidates were neck to neck. The tension was sky high on election day November 7, 2000. Behold, we were to have a new president; so we thought.

Election experts have called for "evolution" instead of a "revolution" in changing the way the country goes about its elections. Never in history has such controversy risen as in the election 2000; Bush Vs. Gore.

Election 2000 has raised "serious concerns over the integrity of the voting system," Filled with demonstrations of voting machines and oversized punch-card ballots. The election was ultimately made overcomplicated due to the counting of ballots which were now being re-counted on a local level because of what we now call DIMPLES AND

CHADS.

Dimples and Chads are funny names to be given to election ballots; but then again, what wasn't funny about this election as a whole?

Election ballots are set up to be like punch-in cards. A person casts their vote, and a hole is punched into a ballot where the space for the candidate is provided. It seems to be easy enough. However, that was not the case in this presidential election. For some reason, ballots went up the walls with malfunctions. These bogus ballots were given the names "Dimples and Chads". Dimples are the given name to ballots in which the vote seemed to be intended but were not quite punched through but sort of made to look like a "dimple". Chads, on the other hand, are votes in which a part of the punched vote has gone through, but the whole thing is not punched through. It is called a chad when the vote is punched but still attached to the ballot in some which way.

As a result of these complications in the votes, debate was brought about as to which votes were going to be counted and which were not.

Also it arose as to who was trying or attempting to vote for who. Thus, the debate over dimples and chads began.

However, experts such as Doug Lewis executive director of the Election

Center in Houston, Texas, said we shouldn't be too alarmed. He says that the framers of the Constitution purposely designed the process to be flawed because they didn't trust in a centralized authority. He also says that a perfect election is one where none of the imperfections go into the...

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...y win. However, Vice president Gore would not be still with this outcome. His disappointment would be backed up by the misunderstanding of votes in the nation. I'm sure there must have been many recounts in several if not all states. However, things didn't heat up or get as difficult as they did in the state of Florida.

Ultimately, after all the appeals introduced by Vice president Al

Gore, and all the recounts done in Florida as well as many other states, It all came down to the Electoral votes of the nation, which favored George W. Bush. Our new president was finally officially announced in January of 2001.

All of the agonizing bickering among candidates and political parties. And all the recounting of votes among Florida and other states. Not to mention all the court hearings concerned with whether dimples and chads were to be counted as votes or undervotes. All this resulted in the longest election process the nation has ever had to endure. What does that say about our electoral process? I believe we have come this far with the same process for many years. However change for the better is never without consideration.