The United States is the backbone of the technology age. We are responsible for the first use of weapons of mass destruction. We are the world's greatest economic powerhouse. All this, and yet we were counting presidential ballots by hand. Bush was sure he had won the presidential election. He knew he had captivated a larger audience. No wonder, as Gore, like his father before him, couldn't even collect his home state. Although just as the election ended he found out how close it really was (Duffy 1). Albeit Bush won, he is still "not considered to be the legitimate president in many quarters of the country" ("Electoral" 1). Many of the problems in the presidential election of 2000 were caused by outdated voting machines but

Thousands of votes in Palm Beach didn't register in the punch-card reading machine, according to Michael Duffy (12). This could be due to the approximate 600,000 outdated punch-card and mechanical-lever voting machines across the country (Drinkard 1). Even though old voting contraptions cause problems, Noah Adams (2) reports that a lot of the election confusion was caused by the television networks calling winners in states before the polls even closed.

Although all this may sound great, the truth of the matter is that experts say that it will take a minimum of 10 years to upgrade the whole country. What happens when Miami-Dade, Dallas, and Chicago say all of the sudden, 'We'd like to buy new voting equipment? asks Drinkard (3), There are no manufacturers big enough. Fewer than a dozen

Some common words found in the essay are:
Dallas Chicago, Noah Adams, Jim Drinkard, What's United, Albeit Bush, Michael Duffy, Palm Beach, voting equipment, voting machines, , presidential election, touch screen, election 2000, bush won,
Approximate Word count = 534
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)