Strange, tense days for American democracy

Government of the people and by the poll counters.

Remember when your mom told you to vote on Tuesday, since every vote counts? Well, your mom was right, because for the people of Florida, every vote really does count. 256 votes separate George W. Bush, DC '68, and Al Gore as I write this, and if the general pattern of this recount continues, it's only going to get closer. Your absentee ballot, your grandmother's vote, even Dan Marino's vote could decide the election. If Bush wins, he could personally thank brother Jeb for casting the deciding ballot. If Gore wins, your Democrat aunt and uncle could get a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. If all goes as it should, the election of 2000 will go down in history as the greatest of all time, the one moment when the system of democracy our forefathers founded worked to perfection, vote by vote, person by person. At least that's how it may go down in elementary school textbooks.

The truth of the matter is, quite simply, if George W. Bush takes the state of Florida and becomes the 43rd President of the United States, a looming, 3,000-pound gorilla of doubt, possibly fraud, and other rather undemocratic factors will be on his shoulders for the rest of his presidency. Never mind the almost evenly divided Congress he will be presiding over, his slim mandate of roughly the population of Lanman-Wright Hall, or the disturbing lack of intellectual curiosity that has marked Bush since his years at Yale. If all of these factors don't make him the most ineffective president since John Quincy Adams, another son of a former president, what will crush his powers is that he could be the first undemocratically elected president since Gerald Ford. Ford came to the presidency as a result of two scandals that caused Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon to resign. Bush had similar luck throughout his life, coming to Yale, making a bundle off failed oil companies, owning the Texas Rangers, and becoming Texas Governor largely by his father's name, who in turn made his name with the help of his father's name. And as if Bush needed any more dumb luck, he could become president because of the flawed, faulty, and downright shady voting practices of the state of Florida.

If you've been following the elections as closely as I have, you may already realize that Al Gore is doomed, perhaps even cursed, to fall to Dubya by the sort of practices we haven't heard of since the last time we heard Richard Daley say "vote early, vote often." The most innocent of these euphemistically-named "irregularities" is the "butterfly" design of the Palm Beach County ballot. The poorly-designed ballot that has easily given Pat Buchanan thousands of Gore votes is one of the dumbest ideas since New Coke, confusing enough for younger eyes, never mind the elderly. More importantly, it does not adhere to the memo sent out by Florida Elections Director Clay Roberts reminding districts of the ballot specifications dictated by state law. Of course, Clay Roberts himself, who is on the panel presiding over the Florida recount, dodged the question while walking out of a press conference that was otherwise uninformative. He is a Republican. Even Pat Buchanan, not the man one would expect to seem sensible, expressed remorse over the mistaken votes he received in the county, and flatly stated, "I don't want to take any votes that do not belong to me."

There are more troubling details in the state of Florida, now a measuring stick for the state of democracy in the United States. Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) claims 19,120 Palm County ballots were tossed out because more than one candidate was picked. Yet only 3,783 such ballots were discarded because multiple Senatorial candidates were chosen, suggesting that the whole county's Presidential results are irrevocably flawed. Strange reports of lost ballot boxes in Volusia, Broward, Dade and Palm Beach counties might be completely false, but they certainly give validity to Gore's call for hand-counting in these tightly-contested counties. And through all this and an Orange Bowl of litigation, there's a chance, albeit slim, that the actual winner, Bush or Gore, will take the state. But put your own party affiliations aside and ask yourself: should democracy, rule by the people, not by the people who count the people, take this kind of risk?

My answer is no. Forget the fact that in America we are destined to see run-offs as something done only by severely flawed "democracies" like Serbia, and call one in the state of Florida. Put Bush and Gore, two leading candidates we cannot possibly decide from on the basis of these corrupted results, on an undeniably simple ballot. Take away the Nader factor, something Ralph himself wouldn't mind with the threat of Bush drilling National Refuge land in Alaska for oil. Watch as almost 99 percent of the Florida constituency votes, and Gore wins a tight but undeniable victory. Celebrate the fact that you live in an honest democracy.

Josh Drimmer, DC '03, is A&E editor of the Herald.

In one of the most hotly contested Senate races of the 2000 campaign, the innovative campaign strategy of Missouri's former democratic governor Mel Carnahan made all the difference. After all, how do you campaign against a dead guy? It's difficult enough to criticize a living opponent without being accused of negative campaigning, let alone a dead one. As Carnahan's plane fell to earth in a fatal crash on Mon., Oct. 16, his poll numbers went up, and his campaign staff's plea to Missouri residents,"Don't let the fire die," propelled a corpse into Congress.

Though the voting public has been accused of idiocy before, it has never elected a dead man to the Senate. By Missouri state law, ballots cannot be altered within a month of an election. Carnahan's death three weeks before the election prevented the Democrats from changing their nominee, and with his Republican opponent, Senator John Ashcroft, already enjoying a small lead in the polls, most politicians logically predicted that the Carnahan campaign would collapse. While some Democrats called for a write-in candidacy, Governor Roger Wilson, who replaced Carnahan in office, announced that he would ask Carnahan's widow Jean to fill the Senatorial vacancy should the unthinkable happen. And it did.

Predictably, Republicans are outraged by the situation. Though Ashcroft has promised not to contest the election, others have questioned the legality of Carnahan's victory on two points: his Missouri residency and Wilson's promise to entrust Jean with the seat. The Constitution dictates that a state's senatorial candidate must "when elected, be an inhabitant of that state." One might claim that Mel Carnahan not only inhabits the state of Missouri, but resides quite literally in the state of Missouri, or at least six feet under it. No stickler for such details, politician Mark Braden claims, "Under no reasonable interpretation of that particular phrase is someone who's dead an inhabitant of that state." Braden's fears might be assuaged by considering the curious case of philosopher Jeremy Bentham and the College Council of the University College of London. Bentham's will dictated that upon his death in 1832 his skeleton should be preserved, dressed, adorned with a wax head, and placed in a wooden cabinet. Legend has it that during Council meetings Bentham is wheeled out to participate, consistently recorded in the minutes as "Jeremy Bentham—present but not voting," except in the case of a tie, when Bentham inexplicably supports whatever motion is on the floor. If Carnahan were treated similarly, it is likely that his participation would not be much less than that of some of the most negligent living Senators anyway.

The Republican's second claim has much more weight. Ann Wagner, Missouri's GOP chairman, maintains that Wilson's explicit promise to replace Carnahan with Carnahan violates the Hatch Act, which forbids the "promise of employment or other benefit for political activity." By announcing that a vote for Mel was a vote for Jean, Wilson may have violated this clause. But the Missouri Attorney General's office argues that Republicans are misinterpreting the Hatch Act, saying that the governor was not prohibited from naming a potential replacement for Carnahan and that the law simply prevents a quid-pro-quo exchange of jobs for electoral support. Additionally, the Constitution ultimately allows the Senate to determine whether a candidate is fit to serve, and by failing to recognize a vacancy the Senate could either proceed with 99 members or employ the Bentham solution. With the latter option, the Senate could take heart that, based on the eulogies of friends, Carnahan's personality should not differ much from when he was alive. "When you meet Mel Carnahan, it's sort of like meeting your pastor," said one compatriot.

Whether Wilson violated the law or not, in the short run he helped to pull off quite an upset. Our American tendency to transform the dead into heroes and martyrs makes it easy for us to abandon principles and issues for a sudden emotional attachment to a candidate's widow. Indeed, it seems that a substantial "Widow Bloc" is developing in Congress—there are already three women who took over for their deceased husbands in the House.

This election cycle should cause people to think hard about revising our democratic process. Bush's apparent electoral-not-popular victory over Gore has caused plenty of outrage already and may bring about the end of the electoral college. This type of blind reliance on exit polls and muddled ballots in Florida showed that every vote does count after all. And a victory from beyond the grave indicates that Missouri state law should allow ballot changes up to the election date.Carnahan's shrewd ploy left poor Ashcroft without much of a chance, and perhaps Al Gore should take heed for his next campaign—sometimes a well-timed death can give you a new political life.

Jay Augsburger is a senior in Saybrook.

Graphic by Sarah England/YH.

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