edHelper.com
2008 Elections
2004 Elections
 What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)

What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   5.61

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    president-elect, punches, punched, deadline, leads, fairest, projection, presidential, especially, between, tally, court, register, early, vote, difference
     content words:    George Bush, Al Gore, Election Day, United States, Benjamin Harrison, Electoral College, White House, More Democrats, More Republicans

Print What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)
     Print What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format
     Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
     Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format
     Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)
     Leave your feedback on What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

What If? (The 2000 Presidential Election)
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     The presidential election of 2000, between George Bush and Al Gore, was one of the closest elections ever. It was so close that no one was sure who won until weeks after the election!
 
2     November 7th was Election Day. The Democrats and the Republicans knew that it would be a close race. Everyone watched as TV stations announced updates of the vote so far. When a certain number of votes from each state had been counted, the stations announced their projection for who would win that state. A few states were especially important since winning in those states could mean winning the whole election. This was because the election is determined by counting the number of electoral votes assigned to each state, not by counting the total number of individual votes.
 
3     Florida was one of those key states, and the TV stations projected that Gore would win Florida. Then, early the next morning, they had to announce that they had been wrong. Now they said that Bush had won. Al Gore called George Bush and congratulated him on his win.
 
4     Then the TV stations found out that they had made another mistake! The final tally was not in yet, and as more votes were counted, Gore began to catch up. He called George Bush back to tell him that it was not over yet!
 
5     As it turned out, it wasn't over for five weeks! Problems with the ballots began to show up. Florida voters had used punch card ballots. Some of the punches, called "chads," hadn't punched all the way through. Some ballots had no choice punched for president. The ballots were counted and recounted. Even though millions of people had voted, the difference was down to about 300 votes! Lawyers for both candidates went to court and argued about the details of the recount. Judges had to decide how long the recount would go on, and when the vote would be final.

Paragraphs 6 to 11:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2009 edHelper