It's November 9th and the United States still does not have a President-elect. The nation is divided and in absolute disarray-some even feel disenfranchised. It seems as if the choice of our new president has fallen exclusively on the state of Florida, which has a meagre 25 of the 270 votes needed to win the presidency. This is an outright unfair burden to Florida, as they will be held responsible for what the future president does for the next four years. I will attempt to explain why this happened and why another outright vote is needed to ensure democracy for the United States of America.

The vote for President in the United States is not geared or prepared for close elections. Under our current system it is possible to obtain a 269 electoral vote tie, although the probability of that happening is considered slim. The election process has many fazes that discourage this kind of thing from happening. Our system is primarily a two-party system, we do provide for third parties, however. The effect of third party candidates and the Electoral College itself discourages any scenario of an even split or tie. So why are our candidates virtually deadl

ocked? There are more than a few answers to this question the most noted being that while the candidates did differ on most issues, they were similar on spending most of our budget surplus, as well as military spending among others. While the similarities were not directly pointed out, there was an under current of voters that felt like they were voting for a lesser of two-evils. Combine that ideology with the fact that the most noted third-party candidate Ralph Nader received only 3% of the vote nationally and you have potential for disaster. The "lesser of two-evils" thinking produced unforeseen results with Al Gore losing some democratic states, including his own, yet poised to win the election courtesy of our electoral college.

That is only half of the situation. There is also a conflict on the ballot design in West Palm Beach County, a county with mostly seniors and blacks. Based on previous votes the county probably would have gone democratic to the pleasure of Al Gore. This county alone offers a staggering 19,000 votes in an election where 1 vote could mean the difference. The Florida government decided to "throw-away" these 19,000 votes because the ballots of confused voters contained two punched holes for president. This goes beyond the scope of Voter Ed 101. It articulates common sense, which everyone shouldn't be assumed to have by the Florida government. Most federal authorities take the position of vote recounts, while the public sentiment cries for a re-vote. On behalf of the candidates of West Palm Beach County a lawsuit has been filed for the right to revote. If all this ball-of-confusion were taken as a whole, it would seem feasible for the entire state to have a re-vote with all of the United States media watching. The constitution and partisan politics probably won't all

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1223
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)