Good morning, Michael. The weekend is over, and there is, unsurprisingly, no sign of any serious effort at compromise or accommodation between these two sides (other than Joe Lieberman's welcome suggestion that the discarded absentee ballots be reviewed--one of the few examples of either side trying to be conciliatory or fair during this imbroglio). So we seem certain now to move toward the end of this struggle guided by the courts--starting (but almost certainly not ending) today with the Florida Supreme Court's decision on whether to require the secretary of state to accept the results of hand recounts.
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StumbleUponI'm not qualified to comment on the legal basis of the claims on both sides. But I can speculate on the likely results of the possible decisions. If the court upholds Judge Lewis' decision that it is within Secretary of State Harris' discretion to reject any counts that come in past the deadline, then I think the contest is essentially over. I very much doubt the federal courts will intervene in this dispute, and the Gore campaign will have little choice but to concede within a few days.
But if, as most people expect, the court rules that the hand counts must be accepted, then there are many possible scenarios. One of them is that there will be a hand recount of the three Democratic counties and the result will be the same: Bush will still lead. The early results of the counts suggest that this will be the case, although you're right that there are many challenged ballots that make it hard to interpret the results so far. But this is clearly a surprise to both sides. The Democrats were very confident that a recount would give them a victory, and the Republicans apparently thought the same thing--why else would they have fought so hard to stop it. If the recount proceeds to its conclusion and Bush still leads, then it may be that some of the bitterness and sense of injustice that Democrats would otherwise feel about the result of a Gore loss will be softened. But no one should assume that the road to that conclusion would be a pretty one. As you've noted, there are already are hundreds, perhaps thousands of challenges--to individual ballots, to the procedures the county election boards are using to count, to the absentee ballot count, and to many other aspects of the recount. Many of those could find their way into court. Even without the challenges, the recounts look as though they could take a very long time. Broward County has moved fairly expeditiously, but Palm Beach County, which has been recounting off and on for over a week, seems to have made almost no progress, and Dade County is only just starting today. So I suspect we're in for many more days of wrangling and accusations before we're done, poisoning the results of this election still further.
But what if the recount shows a Gore win? We would still have the same amount of, perhaps even more, legal wrangling along the way--but much more bitterness. Democrats could probably accept the legitimacy of a Bush victory after a recount (although they will certainly not forget that Gore won the national popular vote and would almost certainly have won Florida as well if not for a flawed ballot in Palm Beach). Many Republicans, however, will never accept the legitimacy of a Gore victory because they are deeply convinced that the recount is unjustified and in violation of Florida law--that holding a recount is tantamount, some are now openly saying, to an effort to steal the election. (This is certainly the view of the New York Post, the Murdoch paper in New York, which--now that its effort to destroy Hillary Clinton has failed--is plastering its front page with inflammatory anti-Gore headlines such as "Stop Thief.") And if the scenario you've suggested--local, Democrat-controlled election boards voting 2-1 to accept disputed Gore ballots--determines the result, the ugliness of this dispute will escalate rapidly and perhaps catastrophically. We could certainly see the battle continue into Congress in January.
It may seem odd that the world views of the two sides on this issue are so starkly different from one another, particularly since the issues being contested are purely procedural ones with no inherent ideological content. I think that the two sides genuinely believe in most of the positions they are taking. But if the situation were reversed and Gore was leading and Bush challenging, it seems entirely possible that the Democrats would be using the Republicans' tactics and vice versa. These positions are shaped and driven entirely by self-interest; but because the cause is so important to both sides, self-interest has been overlaid with expedient principle--which, for the moment, both sides seem to have chosen really to believe.
In the end, though, the basic problem here is that this controversy will have to be decided by human beings, virtually all of whom have political preferences of their own. The governor and the secretary of state are Republicans (and, of course, other things as well). The attorney general, the judges of the Supreme Court, and most of the county election officials in the recount counties are Democrats. Both sides are now so convinced of their righteousness that their partisan inclinations are likely to seem matters of high principle, and the likelihood of fairness, let alone compromise, seems to me fairly remote.
Of all the parties to this dispute, the Florida Supreme Court seems to me the most likely to produce a result that would seem more or less fair. The members are, to be sure, appointees of Democratic governors, but despite their recent wrangling with Jeb Bush, my impression is that they have a reputation for impartiality and fairness. Perhaps they can chart a path to a happier conclusion to this mess than now seems visible.
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
Michael McConnell argues that even a state-wide hand count might give Gore an unfair advantage, because the questionable punch card ballots were used predominantly in counties that heavily supported Gore. But his logic is flawed; he forgets that the argument for a hand recount--widespread undervoting that a human eye might correct--has already taken this very discrepancy into account. Though the hand recount would most likely discover a larger number of new votes for Gore than Bush because of the problems with punch cards, the inverse is true for the current machine count: Bush has been unfairly over-represented by his support in counties with more technologically advanced voting systems. It is not necessarily improper to concentrate energy on hand recounts in punch card counties, since they are the ones in which problems with unread votes are more likely. While I can't think of any serious argument against a state-wide hand count (except for the question about hand count subjectivity which might be dealt with by simple guidelines), the problem now is simply that the Republicans have argued for too long against hand counting at all, and are thus unable to concede this clear, proper compromise.
--Jared White
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I believe that the hand recount is conducted, ballot by ballot, with a representative of both political parties, both of whom must agree on the party for whom each vote was cast. Any ballot that the two person team does not agree on is then reviewed by a three member panel of non-partisans. My point is simply that the recount is not a subjective as one might think. Since one of the candidates campaigned on the slogan that he "trusts the people" and the other has indicated a willingness to trust the people on this issue, I am surprised there is a problem.
--Carrie McLain
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A way out: the Burr-Hamilton solution.
--APM
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(11/15)
Reader Comments from The Fray:
I find it amusing that the Democrats are telling President-elect Bush that the only way he can succeed is to adopt their agenda.
The popular vote, as close as it was, could have swung Bush's way if it was recounted as Florida was. If California and all the voter irregularity in the excessively liberal and populous states were taken out of the picture, the popular vote across the nation was significantly more for Bush. It presents a more accurate picture of America as a whole to view the popular vote minus California. That's the reason for the Electoral College.
Democrats should be looking and asking themselves why they blew this election rather than deluding themselves that it was stolen. Look within. The liberal lies and scare-mongering, and class warfare language and willingness to depart from the law in order to win at any costs is not going to serve America or the Democratic party well. When America has more time to reflect on the days since the election, the Democrats will not fare so well. That is why the Democrats are trying still to deflect attention from their failures.
Vice-President Gore gave a noble speech last night. For the first time in this election process I gained respect for him. He was finally speaking honestly. Liberals should try honesty instead of distortion and manipulation more often.
--Mark Sherman
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Sorry, but I don't see true bipartisanship happening. The division you see has been growing for decades. It isn't between skinheads or klansmen and 'good honest Americans,' it is between those who are willing to be responsible for themselves, and those who've been inculcated with the idea that they have a god-given right to the fruits of someone else's labor. The Dems have done the indoctrinating, and those of us who flocked to the personal freedom stances of 60's Democratic candidates are appalled at how the current flock of Democrat candidates have taken full advantage of the 'buy a vote with welfare' techniques they've developed over the years. I have predicted class warfare by 2010 since 1975. I may be off a couple years, but dramatic changes are in order
--Dennis Jacques
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
I disagree that what the Supreme Court faces is less compelling than Dred Scott. It's time to get past all this rhetoric and look at what we, as citizens, are being dealt. First of all, forget all the pious cant about the wisdom of the founding fathers. The Constitution was never a document that guaranteed democracy in this country, since the founding fathers' didn't want democracy. They didn't want people to be able to vote for the president, that was the job for politicians. Jefferson himself wrote "the people is an ass." While they may have been against British rule, they were in no shape or form democrats in light of the term today. And the Republicans are not such great believers in democracy today. If they were, they would have worked to get an accurate count in Florida. The Supremes are either going to yank us into the present, for those "asses" like myself, of haul us back into the past. That is the Constitutional issue at stake.
--George Grella
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As we await the Supreme Court's decision, I stand astonished. Not that the Supreme Court delved into the 'miasma' of this election dispute--it is not such a bad idea for the last word of the land to have the last word; what astonished me was Scalia's stated reason for the stay granted. The stay itself was not such a bad idea (I voted for Gore, by the way). The decision needed to be made before there were facts on the ground so that no one felt any more robbed than they already do. However, Scalia's unprecedented indication that he has already made up his mind before even receiving a brief must have ruffled some of his colleague's feathers and perhaps created an environment that may well send the 'swing justices'--Kennedy and O'Connor--into the arms of the solid opposition. Scalia's statement may well turn out to be a self-fulfilling anti-prophecy.
It would be most astonishing if any decision were 5 to 4. I think it is more likely that there will be a more solid majority behind some sort of solomonic solution. One hopes that the court will be very, very cautious not to create law itself.
--Rabbi Jason
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In our world of constant disorder, why is it so surprising that the old technology-based society is colliding with the new tech order? We are transforming our entire society to the new tech order. Many systems have not made the transition. Voting processes and systems are at the top of the list right now. This collision must take place and the new tech order take its proper place in this function of our society. Laws must change to support the new order. For now, the courts must decide the outcome based on our current technology and laws. We must invest the next four years and make our voting systems capable of supporting our transforming society, and build new law in this process.
--Steve R
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(12/11)