The Race to the White House is Not Nearly Over!
This Site Lets You Make the Decisions.

For fans of U.S. politics, the night of 7 November 2000 was the most remarkable election night in memory.

But now the big election night is over and the problems in Florida are being resolved, right? It was certainly strange to watch the results of the first recount in Florida; it sounded more like a telethon than an election: "Let's see what the magic number is up on the big board," one MSNBC anchor said. Many people assume that the candidate who wins the Florida election has won the presidency, and we can get on with things.

It is not that simple.

Because of the design of our Electoral College, a number of other outcomes are still possible. I will not explain the design of the Electoral College here, assuming that you have been inundated with news reports about it. However, because those reports usually claim that the Electoral College was designed because "America's Founding Fathers didn't trust the people to pick the president," I have created a brief explanatory page that goes beyond those platitudes to give you some historical perspective: an explanation of the Electoral College in the words of the framers of the Constitution.

Some critics (including some Members of Congress) have been clamoring for the elimination of the Electoral College. It is important to mention that if the president were elected in a direct popular vote, we would still be in a period of uncertainty right now: the popular vote totals are very close and the official counting is still not over.

The remainder of this site works like one of those "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" books. The process of choosing the U.S. Chief Executive is more complicated than you might at first believe, and on this Web site you can pick the outcome you prefer. While not every possible contingency is included here -- for instance, the candidates do not die in any scenario -- you will get a good idea of the most likely possibilities. The 2000 "Final Decision" is in your hands...

Click here to start the 2000 presidential Final Decision.

Click here to read about the Electoral College in the words of the Constitution's framers.