Changes

While the 19th century was known for sometimes fractious and contested elections that sometimes were often drawn out, after this time elections were relatively less dramatic or were simply settled more clearly through the electoral college. Among the most controversial elections in the 20th century for president was the 1960 election. This was the closest election in the 20th century, where Richard Nixon (Republican) competed against John F. Kennedy (Democratic). Texas and Illinois allowed Kennedy to win, where he only received 100,000 more votes in total (or 0.2 of the electorate) to defeat Nixon. What made it controversial was the close race, where voter fraud was widely speculated by the Republicans. Southern In particular, southern Texas and Chicago became the focus of the controversy and accusations of the that Richard Daley, then mayor of Chicago, using the used his political machine to turn out voters, including possibly deceased or ineligible individuals supposedly casting votes, that led to Republicans crying foul. While prominent Republicans were calling for an investigation into election tampering and fraud, including major newspapers backing Nixon having published stories suggesting fraud, Nixon ultimately chose not to pursue and any legal challengesand accepted the results. Instead, he focused on running in another election (1968), which he won in a landslide.<ref>For more on the 1960 election, see: Kallina, E.F., 2011. <i>Kennedy v. Nixon: the presidential election of 1960</i>. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL.</ref>

More recently, the 2000 election between Al Gore and George Bush resulted in a contested election that was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. In this election, Gore won the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. However, he needed Florida to obtain the needed 270 electoral votes. Florida resulted in a razor-thing voting margin for Bush, with the total being 537 more votes for Bush (margin of 0.009%). After a series of lawsuits, the Supreme Court, in a well-publicized (Gore vs. Bush) 5-4 decision, decided to stop the recount occurring through out the state of Floridathat had begun after the election, leading to Bush's triumphbased on where the count had been suspended. Controversy In addition to the controversy around stopping the recount, controversy also revolved around ballots that were not counted due to technical or voting errors.<ref>For more on the 2000 election, see: Gottfried, T., 2002. <i>The 2000 election: Thirty-six days of discord.</i>, Headliners. Millbrook Press, Brookfield, Conn. </ref>