Chamber:
	Senate
Dates of elections / renewal (from/to):
	7 November 2000
Purpose of elections:
	Elections were held for one-third (34) of the seats of the Senate on the normal expiry of the members' term of office.
Background and outcome of elections:
	U.S. voters went to the polls on 7 November 2000 to elect their new President as well as the entire membership of the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the members of the Senate. About 51 per cent of the 205.8 million registered voters turned out to cast their ballot, a modest increase over the 1996 election, when only 49 per cent of the voting population had participated, the lowest turnout since 1924. The presidential race was the closest election in decades. It pitted outgoing Vice President Al Gore against Texas Governor George W. Bush. Although Mr Gore carried most of the states traditionally sympathetic to the Democrats, he lost to Mr Bush in his home state of Tennessee and in Arkansas, outgoing President Clinton's home state. The electoral campaign was the most expensive one ever in American politics. Because of the closeness of the race, political parties and interest groups were estimated to have spent $100 million on voter registration drives, telephone banks and initiatives to increase voter turnout, 10 times as much as was spent on comparable activities in 1996. Between 1 June and 24 October 2000, both parties spent $67 million on television advertisements ($36 million for the Republican Party and $31 million for the Democratic Party) without taking into account the more than $20 million that the Bush and Gore campaigns had each. spent During the evening of 7 November 2000, it became clear that Florida would effectively decide the presidential election. The first results forecast by the television networks gave Mr Gore the 25 electoral college votes in this state. A few hours later, NBC, CNN, and other networks declared Florida undecided. Early in the morning of 8 November 2000, television networks declared Mr Bush the winner of Florida and Mr Gore telephoned him to concede defeat. One hour later, the networks retracted their declaration of a Bush victory and Mr Gore called him again to withdraw his concession as the difference between the two candidates was only a few thousand votes. At noon, following the announcement of a Bush majority of 1,655 votes, Florida officials began a mandatory machine recount. A legal war between the two parties over a manual recount then began and lasted until 12 December 2000, when the Supreme Court gave Mr Bush his long-sought victory. He won Florida by just 537 votes out of 6 million cast, with a manual recount abandoned, thousands of ballots incomplete, and at the order of a court split 5 to 4. After the Supreme Court decision, Mr Gore publicly accepted the result and pledged allegiance to the new President. In the Congress the Republicans won their fourth consecutive majority in the House of Representatives, although it was the narrowest one since 1954: 221 seats against 212 for the Democrats and two for independents. In the Senate, the Republicans lost four seats that went to the Democrats as no independents were elected. The 107th Senate was thus evenly split for the first time in 120 years. The 13 women in the new Senate are a record number; they include the former first lady, Mrs. Clinton. On 3 January 2001, the 107th Congress convened and Mr Dennis Hastert was re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives. On 20 January 2001, Mr Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States and the new Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney became President of the Senate.

STATISTICS

Round no 1 (7 November 2000): Elections results
Number of registered electors	205 800 000
Voters	51%

Round no 1: Distribution of seats
Political Group	Total	Seats 2000
Republican Party	50	15
Democratic Party	50	18

Distribution of seats according to sex:
Men:	87
Women:	13
Percent of women:	13.00