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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

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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!

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