Let’s imagine a very slightly different election in November 2000 for Florida. Several different people do get registered, several people don’t get registered. Some people decide to vote and some people don’t decide to vote. And finally, some people do respond to exit poll requests while others deny exit poll requests. These are very minor changes which under normal conditions would have little effect on results- but not here …
November, 7th 2000- Election Night
The polls have closed in nearly all of Florida at 7:00pm but the pan-handle still has an hour to vote. However the Exit Polls are such the Associated Press calls the election for Gore at 7:50pm, 10 minutes before the polls close there. The news stations across the country project Al Gore at that time the winner in the key state and the election looks like his. But by 9:30 things look less certain. Bush suddenly gets massive boosts in his strong holds in the pan-handle and more votes in Gore strongholds have padded him out further. Soon the news stations move Florida back to too close to call. 11:00pm went and the polls closed everywhere (bar Alaska but 3ev were Bushes anyway) but no president elect could be called. The nation was glued to the screen. Children were woken and people thought ‘any minute now’ but midnight came and went. The election night was over but the election wasn’t.