1104 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedythe federal system. Now, however, it
overturned a decision of the Florida
Supreme Court interpreting the state’s
election laws. The majority justified
their decision by insisting that the
“equal protection” clause of the Four-
teenth Amendment required that all
ballots within a state be counted in
accordance with a single standard,
something impossible given the wide
variety of machines and paper ballots
used in Florida. Perhaps recognizing
that this new constitutional princi-
ple threatened to throw into question
results throughout the country— since
many states had voting systems as complex as Florida’ s— the Court added that
it applied only in this single case.
The most remarkable thing about the election of 2000 was not so much
its controversial ending as the even division of the country it revealed. Bush
and Gore each received essentially half of the popular vote. The final count
in the electoral college stood at 271-266, the narrowest margin since 1876.
The Senate ended up divided 50-50 between the two parties. But these figures
concealed deep political and social fissures. Bush carried the entire South
and nearly all the states of the trans- Mississippi farm belt and Rockies. Gore
won almost all the states of the Northeast, Old Northwest, and West Coast. Res-
idents of urban areas voted overwhelmingly for Gore. Rural areas went just as
solidly for Bush. Members of racial minorities gave Gore large majorities, while
white voters preferred Bush. The results also revealed a significant “gender
gap.” Until the 1960s, women had tended to vote disproportionately Republi-
can. In 2000, women favored Gore by 11 percent, while men preferred Bush by
the same margin.A Challenged Democracy
Coming at the end of the “decade of democracy,” the 2000 election revealed
troubling features of the American political system at the close of the twenti-
eth century. The electoral college, devised by the founders to enable the coun-
try’s prominent men rather than ordinary voters to choose the president, gave
the White House to a candidate who did not receive the most votes— an odd
result in a political democracy. A country that prided itself on modern tech-
nology had a voting system in which citizens’ choices could not be reliablyGERMANYGERMANY GERMANY
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EL SALVADOREL SAL(D.C.)VADORCUBA19102013THE PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION OF 2000