“Election 2000” is a phrase we will all see in history books for hundreds of years. This election challenges our Electoral College and our voting system.

“The election is a close race but nothing like when Al Gore and George W. Bush ran against each other in 2000,” we’ll hear media reporters comment in the future. Our children and children’s children will ask with wondering eyes what we thought when we didn’t know who the next president was for days or months after the election.

What an amazing time it is to be an American. It’s a time when your vote really does count. Since childhood, you have heard your schoolteachers tell you about what an honor it is to be able to vote. It was a right Americans had. No one ever really knew how important that right was until this election. As the Florida recount comes down to its last days and lawsuits are put into swing across the state, the media become more aware of the dangers of misreporting information. As you watch the news, look up Web sites or read newspapers, you can see the mediums all changing their vocabulary to increase the use of phrases like “unofficial results” and “paper-thin margins.”

With Gore leading in the popular vote and Bush in the lead currently in Florida, it causes the nation to question its founding fathers and the Constitution they set forth for us.

Will the Electoral College make it through the next presidency? Will lawsuits drag out the outcome of the election past the set inauguration date? No one knows. Absolutely no one knows. This has caused many problems of its own. As any follower of the stock market realizes, whenever there is uncertainty about the future, the stock market crashes.

If there ever was question about the future of the nation, it is greater now. The stock market reports are more downward every day this drags on. Should this fact and the state of the nation have an effect on the way the parties decide to deal with this dilemma? Or should justice be sought, no matter what the temporary costs? I am sure everyone has his or her own answers on these and the many other questions surrounding “Election 2000.” Now more than ever, only time will tell the real results.

Robin Sanborn
communication junior