A Cutthroat Battle

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec00/regional_11-28.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec00/badcall_11-8.html

To say that the 2000 Presidential election was a fierce battle is an understatement. In case any of you do not know, the 2000 Presidential was between George Bush (Republican) and Al Gore (Democrat). Of course, Bush was the resulting winner, but his win wasn't very clear-cut. Unlike other elections, the 2000 one did not go smoothly. There was a lot of controversy over who the real winner was. One of the states that was at the center of controversy, which always seems to be, is Florida. Ah, good old Florida. The race was so close, a recount had to take place. Anyone who was involved in the recount must've been exhausted. But Gore was determined to win, that's for sure. I mean, who wouldn't be, especially when so much is at stake? 

In other elections, the results have been close, but not as close as in this election. There was a lot of question over how votes are counted, and how accurately they are counted. It's a mess, to say the least. But it does show that we are humans, and humans make mistakes. The editorials I read (I love reading editorials) provided me with some insight and opinions about the race. You see, there were various political analysts/writers such as Bruce Dold and Cynthia Tucker. Several weeks passed, and the results still weren't final. Dold believed that Gore should've gave up a long time ago. Politicians have the right to demand a recount in any election, usually being the losing candidate. Dold believed that "the best he [Gore] could hope for is that kind of an extraordinary count", in order to win. So he was basically saying, "okay, election's over, you lost, Bush won, end of story." While, Cynthia Tucker believed that Gore should "stay the course" and continue pressing on until everything is recounted. She believed it wasn't time to give up, no not at all. Long story short, people had a wide variety of views regarding Gore's actions on recounting votes in this election. 

As I read in the article "Bad Calls", some analysts believed this election was a mistake, that's all. They believed we could, as humans, only do so much to make sure everything is done as carefully and as perfectly as it could be. It's something to learn from, a major point being that we've got to do something about the accuracy of our voting process, because all of this recounting business can be avoided. 

So I have a few questions. What do you think about this election? Was Gore right to have the votes recounted? Or was he just wasting his and everybody else's time? Could Florida have done something to avoid discrepancies in this neck-and-neck race?  Lastly, why was this race in particular so close, but not others?