Bush v. Gore

A VERY CLOSE ELECTION

The 2000 Presidential Election was one of the closest in history. To get some perspective on how close that election was, I came up with the following questions that I believed the students would find interesting, as well as using some good mathematics. This makes for a very good extra credit situation although it has lost some of its interest to today's students. It does suggest an approach that teachers could take with a similar situation in the future. The problem uses the visual images of a basketball court and a football field. This type of familiar image will help students understand the closeness of the vote. Older students and adults will also enjoy this.

In the state of Florida in 2000, the official “certified” voting results showed that George Bush got 2 912 790 votes and Al Gore received 2 912 253 votes. Imagine that the combined votes of these two candidates equaled the length of a football field, from goal line to goal line (100 yards). If the two candidates had received exactly the same number of votes, then they would each have 50 yards. However they didn't receive the same number of votes. Based on the vote totals above, Mr. Bush won Florida by what distance? Round your answer to the nearest sixteenth of an inch.

Using the same vote totals from above, assume the combined vote total is the length of a high school basketball court (84 feet). In this case, Mr. Bush won Florida by what distance? Round this answer to the nearest thirty-second of an inch.

In the total USA vote in 2000, Mr. Gore received
50 996 582 votes and Mr. Bush received 50 456 062 votes. Assuming the combined vote total of the two candidates is a football field, as above, Mr. Gore won by what distance? Round to the nearest sixteenth of an inch. Assuming the combined vote total is the length of the high school basketball court, as above, Mr. Gore won by what distance? Round to the nearest thirty-second of an inch.

The answers and my solution plan will appear in a future post.