Decision and Indecision 2000:

Our School and the Country

By David Emer

 

In our school election, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman of the Democratic Party beat George Bush and Dick Cheney of the Republican Party in a landslide. Of the 845 students and staff who voted, 56% voted for Gore, 22% for Bush, 17% for Ralph Nader of the Green Party, 3% for Libertarian hopeful Harry Browne and 1% for Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party. Seven hundred ninety-one of the people were students and 54 were staff members. Sadly, just more than half of the staff members voted. Coincidentally, in the national election only 50.7% of the eligible voters actually voted. The staff elected Gore by an even greater margin than the rest of the school. A whopping 80% wanted Gore to be the new president. Bush, Nader and Browne got 11%, 7% and 2% respectively. The students elected Gore with 54%, and Bush, Nader, Browne, and Buchanan received 23%, 18%, 3%, and 1% respectively. Al Gore won on every team and got more than 50% of the votes on five teams. George W. Bush did the best on 8 Red where he took 32% of the votes. George W. Bush came in second on every team except 7 Gold, 7 and 8 Blue. On those teams Nader came in second. Interestingly enough, 8 Blue also had the one of the smallest percentages for Nader. This probably happened because Gore and Lieberman won 8 Blue by the highest margin of 72%. Only 7 Green and the staff had a lower percentage for Nader. Harry Browne did not get double-digit percentages on any team but got the high­est percentage on 7 Red with 7%. On 7 Blue no one voted for him. Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party had a lot of trouble at our school. He did the best on 8 Gold and 8 Blue with 2% of the votes. He got no votes from 8 Green, 8 Red and the staff. In total he only got 8 votes. Thanks to the students of 8 Blue who ran this election. Also thank you to Mr. Nolan and Ms. Vacca who coordi­nated this election.

Mr. ______won in one of the closest elections in history. This election should be called Indecision 2000 instead of Decision 2000. Part of the problem is the Electoral College, which allows each state to have a certain amount of votes depending on its size. To win the election a candidate has to get 270 or more Electoral College votes. Most states decide to whom their Electoral College votes go by who got the most votes in the state. The state that is causing the most problems is Florida. Whoever wins in Florida wins the election. Unfortunately, the vote is too close to call, which means that a recount is legally required. There are also numerous controversies about the ballot in Florida. The first problem is that people got confused about which hole they were supposed punch for which candidate. So, some people accidentally voted for Buchanan instead of Gore. Other people punched two holes on the ballot, which made their votes ineligible. Still others didn’t push down hard enough with the punchers so the machine didn’t catch them. These issues make the recount even more complicated. These and other voting irregularities have resulted in many court cases concerning the vote in Florida. One of these cases went to the Supreme Court.

This year there is also controversy about the Electoral College because Gore probably won the popular vote but might not win the election. This can happen because a candidate can win in a state by one vote and get all of that state’s Electoral College votes yet lose in a state about the same size by a landslide. It seems unlikely, however, that the Electoral College will be changed.

In Election 2000, the presidency wasn’t the only thing decided. Here in the state of Massachusetts, we voted to reelect Edward Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s brother, to his sixth term as our senator. He beat Jack E. Robinson of the Republican Party and Carla Howell of the Libertarian Party in a landslide.

In the Bay State we voted not to ban dog racing, which animal rights activists say is cruel to animals. It was a very close vote though; 51% of the people voted against banning dog racing, and 49% of the people voted to ban dog racing. If it had passed, the two stadiums in the state would be shut down. Massachusetts residents will also be seeing an income tax rollback, so now is the time to convince your parents to take you to Europe.

On the national level Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first First Lady to be elected to public office. She will be a senator from New York. This also was the first election in which a dead person was elected senator. Mel Camahan, a Democrat and the governor of Missouri, was running for senator when he died in a plane crash three weeks before the election. His wife, Jean Carnahan, said that she would take his place if he were elected. It is supposed that she got a lot of the sympathy vote because the other candidate was actually winning by 5% in the polls prior to the election, but that dwindled down to nothing before the election.

In January, when all the senators and other elected officials take office, there will be 50 Republican senators and 50 Democratic senators. The Senate seat from Washington state was recently decided. After recounts in that state, Democrat Maria Cantwell was named the new Senator. This is only the third time in history that the Senate seats have been equally divided. Before this election, the Republicans had a majority in the Senate. Should there be a tie in a Senate vote the vice-president will cast the tie-breaking vote. Since the winner of the presidential election hasn’t been confirmed yet, we don’t know whether the vice-president will be a Democrat or a Republican.