My understanding is that Al Gore decided to stop fighting lest the country get too divided. In other words, he took one for the team.

Did the supreme court interfere politically? I'm not sure, but there was a smell. An institution can survive a bad smell or two once in a while, but when it gets commonplace, it loses credibility.

The trouble with coin-flip elections is that one event (or several in concordance) can decide the outcome. For example, I'm sure James Comey's email revelation caused 500,000 soft-D supporters not to vote in 2016----and this flipped the election.

Likewise in 2000, had the D's turfed the other Clinton in the previous year, there would have been no intense interpretation of "hanging chads." The year 2000 could have been a decisive victory for the D's, such that no "little event(s)" could have flipped the coin.

I'm amazed at how Americans regard 51 to 49 split as a decisive victory. In Canada, that would be a close election, worthy of bringing in the courts. Maybe 2% of our Westminster elections get that close.