The next president could have a dramatic, long-lasting impact on the future direction of the US Supreme Court, which has been finely balanced on important issues such as abortion, religion, race and states' rights.
Mr Gore and Mr Bush have expressed sharply differing visions of the nation's highest court, which generally has been controlled by a 5-4 conservative majority.
The next president could, over the four years of his term, get the chance to make several new appointments, thus reshaping the court and altering its ideological makeup, political activists and legal experts agree.
The appointments could affect the legal outcome on such issues as abortion rights, church-state separation, affirmative action and the balance of power between the federal government and the states.
Mr Gore has said he most admires the late William Brennan and the late Thurgood Marshall, two stalwart liberals on the Supreme Court who helped transform American law until their retirements in the early 1990s.
Mr Bush has cited Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, widely regarded as the court's two most conservative members, as models for his appointments.
President Clinton said last week that a number of rights, including a woman's right to choose an abortion, would be at stake in Tuesday's election. "The American people will make a decision in this election, which will shape the Supreme Court and other federal courts, and the range of liberty and privacy, and the range of acceptable national action for years to come," Mr Clinton said.
The court currently consists of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy on the conservative side. On the more liberal side are Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.