Like many of you, I’ve spent hours this past week hunched over the TV, watching the election news and the aftermath. I then bounced back to the computer to check out the online magazine salon.com, then msnbc.com, then cnn.com, then back to the TV again.
Events are moving so quickly the daily newspapers seem out of date even as they’re being delivered because the game has already moved on. Then, between the TV and the computer, I’m getting calls from my son Tony who is down in Florida for salon.com. He’s been bouncing back and forth, by car and plane, from Tallahassee to Palm Beach County to Viliosa County and back again. I’m beginning to suspect I’m in total information overload, which probably is the case because Karen is suggesting I take a long hot shower and lay down for awhile, in that special voice wives sometimes use when they’re dealing with you like a child.
The combatants have thrown us all into a state of uncertainty and flux, watching all the moves and countermoves. No matter whom I’ve talked to, whether Democrat or Republican, everyone seems to have exactly the same reaction, and that is, “The other guy is trying to steal the election.” The funny part is, everybody’s probably a little bit right.
So, I decided to try and take a step back, restore my equilibrium and see if I could put the entire thing into some perspective.
To begin with, it’s essential, to one degree or another, we all admit that we’re all partisans, that the country itself has become partisan and is pretty much split almost exactly 50/50.
The speakers, the lawyers and the representatives for their respective sides, Baker on one side, Daley and Christopher on the other, are advocates for their causes. No matter what they say, none of it is objective, gospel truth. In fact, more often than not, it’s baloney. Admittedly, well-crafted baloney, but in the final analysis, it’s still principally baloney with just a smidgen of truth in it.
Actually, there are really two truths. There is a Republican truth and a Democratic truth. In 20 years historians will be able to sort out which position was closer to the objective truth, but certainly not now.
And I can also absolutely assure that, despite what people are claiming, God is not a Republican, or a Democrat, and is most likely just a ‘Declined to State.’
The problem is, even in an election when we all do the best we can, there is no fraud and election officials are as fair and unbiased as they can be, it’s still plus or minus 1 to 2 percent at best. In 99 percent of election contests, this is, normally, close enough because the winner is clear. However, in any political race that’s as photo finish as this one is, it becomes a serious problem.
Independent research conducted on punch card voting machines has found that 2 to 5 percent of the count is inaccurate. That’s because it’s old technology, and the voting machines and counting machines have their limits. For example, when punched vote cards are put into a counting machine, some ballots can’t be counted. The reason some are invalid is because the voter punched two people for the same office, like both Gore and Buchanan. But there is another group that can’t be counted because they’ve not been punched all the way through. The Chad, that’s the piece of paper that goes over the hole, is still attached so the automatic counting machine that counts by putting a light through the hole doesn’t know there is a hole there.
Next, pretty much every state, including Texas, follows the same procedure to break the tie, that is, they do a manual count.
The manual count is not perfect either, and sometimes there are differences of opinion as to what the voter intended. However, most often they can agree and it solves the problem and they are able to figure out who won. Typically, you can tell by looking at most of the ballots, whether the voter punched it or not. Therefore, the manual hand count, generally, but not always, solves the impasse, except for the rare election that is so close only a court can make the judgment, and it may be weeks or months before you know who won. In a race for State Assembly or a Congressional seat, it may feel like life or death to those running, but it’s generally just an inconvenience to the political system. But in a race for the presidency, everything changes, and the entire country is immediately thrown into limbo.
To my mind, this is the first test of leadership of the new president, whether it is Gore or Bush. So far, neither man has exactly covered himself with laurels. The only solution to the impasse I can see is for the two of them to talk to each other directly, agree on the rules of engagement and find a way to settle this. I don’t know what the solution is, but if they can’t stand up jointly at a press conference and convince us they are committed to a fair count of the vote to pick a winner, then no matter who wins, his presidency is terribly compromised.
The solution to this dilemma is not a legal or public relations solution, it’s a political solution posed by the two candidates. Ultimately, when we go back to the ballot in 2002 and 2004, we’ll decide whether we like the solution, or if we want to change it.