The election has occurred, and all hell has broken loose. My debate-related question, therefore, is this: What can the U.S. possibly do, fairly, constitutionally, to resolve this stalemate?
To be honest, I can’t think of any reasonable conclusion right now. If we let Florida vote again, this is allowing a small portion of the population to determine our president, as well as allowing people to change their votes now that they know that it will actually determine the next president (Nader voters, anyone?). If Bush or Gore is determined to be the president, what’s to stop the losing party from suing and claiming that the margin of error is wide enough to account for the difference in votes? Surely machines that count millions of votes are assumed to be at fault in more than a thousand or so. And what about these hand recounts? How can you entrust human beings, knowing full well that a few votes changed here or there could well DETERMINE the next president, count by hand votes that are meant to be counted by an unbiased machine?
The way I see it, the only possible outcome is one of the candidates ‘giving up’, and conceding the election. Agree? Disagree? Annoyed at me for posting on the election which we’ve already beaten to death? Have at it!
I think the best possible outcome would be if the laws that govern the election process are solidified, and in future elections, further confusions are avoided. After all, even if we get an ineffectual presidency, the country will still go on (hopefully). Let’s just try to avoid a situation like this from now on, 'k? 'k.
The outcome will be decided by the Electoral College, just like the Constitution says. The State of Florida is responsible for sending electors to the Electoral College. They have lots and lots of legal guidelines for doing it. They’re following those guidelines right now. Either they end up sending electors to the Electoral College or they don’t – the Constitution doesn’t care either way.
“What’s to stop a lawsuit”
Well, possibly intelligence and good judgement. If somebody does sue, we may gain knowledge of their lack of intelligence and judgement, and knowledge is always good.
“If we let Florida vote again, this is allowing a small portion of the population to determine our president”
I don’t know if there is any legal reason for a revote, but just to answer this “logic” – if you fill a glass up to the rim, is it only the last drop that causes the water to overflow? Does it have nothing to do with the water previously put into the glass?
According to CNN, the Florida legislature is considering a special session to choose electors if the hand recount goes Gore’s way. Is there any rule that says that the electors have to be uniform in their vote? That is, it’s totally clear that the electorate of Florida is split right down the middle as to which candidate they prefer, to the point where there is no statistical significance to the vote count. Couldn’t they just send 13 electors for Bush and 12 for Gore and get it all over with? I realize that this isn’t going to happen, because it would mean a Republican legislature essentially giving the election to Gore, but in my mind it would be the fairest, most equitable, most democratic way of settling this whole mess.
Finagle that would be a good solution from now on. However since we know that Gore will win with such a situation its very bad democratically since it is essentially giving the win to florida by changing the rules. IMHO we should follow the recount and then change the rules for the next election.
‘Splitting’ the electors would, I think, be in direct violation of the constitution, because it drastically changes the rules of the election.
What the legislature can do is select their own electors and send them to the Electoral College. But I understand that all it takes is one Senator and one Congressman to protest the electors, and they are thrown out. What happens next is unclear - Gore would have a majority of the remaining electors, but that might ‘taint’ the election. And I don’t think the constitution specifically covers all the possibilities, leaving several paths open to a constitutional crisis in which there is no law to appeal to in order to choose a President.
According to the article in today’s The (Toledo) Blade, a pamphlet on what will happen when Congress convenes to count the votes of the electors has been circulated by the congressional Research Service. Here is what happens:
On Jan. 6 (possibly Jan. 5, if a current resolution before Congress is passed) there will be a joint session of Congress. At the session, Vice-President Gore presides. He opens the sealed vote tallies forwarded to Congress from the various state electoral delegations (you folks do understand that there is no such animal as the Electoral Congress, right?). Any member of Congress can object to the vote of any elector, but no debate in the joint session is allowed. Objections, if any, are recorded and, if there are any, the session splits into the House and Senate. There, each side of Congress gets to spend up to two hours debating the objection, and a majority of the members of BOTH houses must agree to the objection or the questioned vote is counted as it was received.
Now, while this is all fine and good, what is NOT specified by the federal law in question is how to resolve the issue of competing slates of electors, such as existed in 1876. After that election, the Congress ended up enacting a special Electoral Commission to resolve who had actually won the elections in three states, as well as a dispute over one Oregon elector. Something similar could occur here if competing slates of electors send vote tallies to Congress.
In short, Congress gets to decide, ultimately, who is a valid Florida elector and whether or not those electors’ votes will be counted.
I don’t think a concession from either candidate would settle things at the moment. If Gore were to concede today, I expect the court-approved recounts would continue. And once the vote totals are certified, the rest of the process proceeds without regard to whether one candidate has admitted defeat. I think the usual concession speech and phone call are traditional courtesies only, and not legally binding. Either candidate could choose not to raise any more issues about the election, and not to pursue any further appeals, but I think we need to get answers on all the issues currently being discussed.
One thing I’d like to see done, by Gore and Bush (and their various representatives) and the news media, is to report this as less of a horse race. It was widely said that the recent Florida Supreme Court ruling to allow the hand counts to continue was a victory for Gore. I would much rather see the emphasis placed on the arguments, not the people. I’d prefer to see details about the chain of reasoning followed by the justices. And I’ve heard it reported that hand counts have been found to be more accurate than those done by machine, but I haven’t heard any details about that. Bringing this into the courts seems to enhance the adversarial approach, but I think it’s lazy of the news organizations to report it that way. In my mind, this is no longer a contest between Bush and Gore. I believe the only competing priorites here are the need for a complete and accurate count of ballots, the fallibility of humans and our machines to achieve a perfect count, and the need to complete this all in the time allowed.
I do have another idea, although it’s too late for this election I’d be curious to hear any of your comments. Most of the debate about the accuracy of different counts has been about the systems that use some form of punch card ballot. From what I’ve seen, the card is inserted into a booklet which shows which hole corresponds to which candidate, the voter punches the holes and removes the card. If the need for a hand recount arises, the ballots should be counted by people who do not know which hole goes with which candidate. I’m sure there would be some practical difficulties with this. Anyone who voted in that county could probably remember how the holes lined up, and it would be hard to convince anyone else to put in the time and effort to help count for an election they didn’t take part in. I think problems like that could be overcome. Counties could pair off and count each other’s punch cards. A hand count like that would still have some degree of error, but much less bias.