THE FINAL MOVES.

• Position: Contested presidential elections, electoral law, vote counting in Florida and judicial proceedings

The strangest election in U.S. history goes down for the count

With slashing lawyers, dueling press conferences, screaming matches across barricades, and fierce arguments over something called "pregnant chads," the 2000 presidential election has had a little bit of everything American democracy has to offer--except for a quick and clean conclusion. Instead, every moment of apparent finality so far has inevitably turned into a new beginning.

And each turn has made history. This presidential election is one of the closest in history, the first to be contested in the courts, the first to be disputed since 1876. With Vice President Al Gore winning the national popular vote by 337,000 out of nearly 100 million votes cast, Texas Governor George W. Bush could become the first president since 1888 to govern without winning the popular vote. And as this issue went to press, it still wasn't over.

AND STILL COUNTING ...

Nineteen days after the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris declared Bush the winner in Florida, whose 25 electoral votes would put him over the top, by a grand total of 537 out of 5.8 million Florida votes. An hour later, Bush claimed victory in the national contest. But the race was anything but over. Vice President Al Gore, saying the vote total left out ballots that would give him the victory, challenged the results in Florida State Court. The U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on the election later in the week, and the Florida state legislature, dominated by Republicans, was considering taking matters into its own hands.

Election 2000 has challenged many basic notions that American had about the electoral process, reminding skeptics that every vote does count, while creating grave doubts about whether every vote gets counted. The partisan postelection contest has also raised questions about how the next President will lead a divided country. And it has opened a fierce debate over the role played by the courts and legislatures in the process.

The eye of the storm was in Florida, where the vote was closer than its margin of error--the normal percentage of mistakes made by counting machines. Statistically, experts say, the Florida vote was a tie. With so few votes separating them, Gore asked for recounts in four counties where voting machines failed to register presidential votes on tens of thousands of ballots. Democrats insist those ballots, when examined by hand, will show votes for president. "Ignoring votes means ignoring democracy itself," Gore says, defending the Democratic quest for votes.

Bush's lawyers went to court to block the recount, arguing that while...