"The most striking thing about this election is how close it was," said Professor of Political Science Thomas Dumm.
A week after election day, the results remain undecided, and political scholars have suggested that contested votes in Florida might cause a constitutional crisis.
The closest thing to a precedent for a disputed election, according to Professor of History and American Studies Frank Couvares, is the 1876 contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden.
In 1876, southern states actively prevented blacks from voting and, in doing so, threw the popular vote to the Democrats. Republicans challenged the results, and a deal was eventually reached. Southern electors voted for Hayes in return for a promise that the Union Army would leave the South. "It was the formal end of Reconstruction," said Couvares.
Couvares agreed with Dumm that the 2000 Presidential and congressional elections were noteworthy because of how close the races were. "What I find interesting is how evenly split the country was in [the] federal and state elections," he said.
Couvares attributed the close races to the inability of some voters to distinguish between the candidates, whose "policies represent different futures for millions."
Dumm, on the other hand, attributed the close vote to similarities between the major parties. "Both would rule as moderate Republicans," he said.
If Bush is elected, Dumm said, it is unlikely that the Senate will accept very conservative appointments to the Supreme Court. It would only take a few Republicans voting with the Democrats to veto any such appointment. "The possibility of more Justices like Thomas and Scalia passing in the Senate is almost nil," he said.
Dumm noted that a split Congress will probably not pass Bush's tax cuts, Gore's health care plan or meaningful campaign finance reform. "Basically, at the national level, we have a recipe for inaction," he said.
Dumm said the possibility that Bush could be elected without a popular majority might call the electoral college into question. Eliminating the electoral college system would prevent this from happening in the future, but, Dumm said, "[it] would result in neglecting less populated states. Significant power shifts would occur, and the problem we have with this election-contested ballots in a close election-would not be solved."
The election was not only followed by faculty; students had a stake in it, as well.
Youth Vote 2000, according to its chair, May Nguyen '04, set up laptops in the McCaffrey Room on five different occasions, helping 220 students request absentee ballots and register in their home states or in Massachusetts.
The Amherst College Democrats prepared for the election by campaigning, registering people to vote and hosting presidential debate parties.
The Amherst College Republicans did not campaign for Bush. "Bush had virtually no chance of winning Massachusetts," said club president Kevin Bush '02. College Republicans campaigned for local politicians instead.