It's really bizarre. Put it all together and you have a crisis for American democracy. What's even more alarming, perhaps, is that the presidential election may very well be decided by some 300 voters. That the public is overwhelmingly uninformed about politics is among the strongest findings of social science.
Information is plentiful and readily available.
A second concern, of course, is whether the votes citizens cast can be said to represent genuine public opinion. Political scientists such as Shanto Iyengar of Stanford have found that media coverage dictates which issues voters consider important, and so alter their evaluations of presidential performance and their electoral choices. Entman also found that voters' opinions are deeply biased by the particular media they consume. Certainly, Bush has a convincing cause of action after the press called Florida for Gore, depressing voter turnout in the heavily Republican Florida panhandle, where polls were still open. It's hard to determine the precise public will, and impossible in the present scenario.