Voting, Arkansas-style
Nov 16th 2000 | LITTLE ROCK
From The Economist print edition
IF FLORIDIANS feel embarrassed about their state’s role in the
presidential election, they might consider a consoling visit to the
home of the current president. Arkansas attracted little attention
during the voting, apart from making Republicans crow about the
fact that it plumped for George W. Bush rather than Bill Clinton’s
vice-president. Yet it arguably presents a much worse picture of
American vote-gathering.
Things began nicely on the day before the election, November 6th,
when the Republican governor, Mike Huckabee, called his state a
“banana republic” on a national radio show. The Democrats,
argued the governor, were carting black voters to the polls on
Sunday after church “as if they were cattle in a truck”. Mr Bush,
Mr Huckabee said, had no chance of winning such a corrupt state.
Mr Bush nevertheless carried Arkansas with 51% of the vote
against Al Gore’s 46%. Mr Huckabee came under fire from
Arkansans of all sorts for painting the state in so unflattering a
light. Most of the evidence, however, supports his judgment. As
one of its more knowledgeable politicians admits, “If the national
spotlight was on Arkansas like it is on Florida, we’d be
embarrassed.”
Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, is generally held to be
the most advanced in the state. Yet a visit to its main election
office did not inspire confidence. Boxes were scattered
everywhere in a ramshackle way. This time, 300 absentee ballots
were not counted, because they were discovered too late to be
certified.
Arkansas, a poor state, has long made do with archaic voting
machines. In some small towns old-fashioned paper ballots are still
marked with a pencil and dropped into a cardboard box. The usual
stories are circulating about ballot boxes mysteriously disappearing
on the dark country backroads that stretch from the polling spots
to the county courthouses where the votes are finally counted.
There are also worries that plenty of people voted twice,
delivering their extra contribution either by absentee ballot or by
voting several days early (as they are allowed to do).
Perhaps the biggest suspicion centres on an alleged shortage of
ballot papers. In Miller County, near the Texas border, poll workers
received ballots on the eve of the election at their homes.
Although there is no hard evidence of ballots being tampered with,
it is hard to imagine American observers watching an election in,
say, Nigeria approving of ballot papers sitting in somebody’s
sitting-room.
On the other hand, new technology does not seem to have helped
much either. Pulaski County’s courthouse offered locals a chance
to vote using touchscreen technology. Some voters encountered
problems getting the screen to register votes in the right boxes.
Some Republicans claim the machine would not accept votes for
their party’s candidates; others say they may have accidentally
cast a ballot for a candidate they did not mean to choose. There
was no paper copy, either to show people how they had just
voted, or for later recounting.
There was no really independent supervision of voting, only state
officials who were generally members of one or another party. The
whole mood was disconcertingly relaxed. At a pre-election
Republican rally with Charlton Heston, Mr Huckabee joked about
the need for his troops to vote early and vote often. Later, he
added that in Arkansas dead Democrats still have a habit of
voting. Unsurprisingly, the rule among local politicians is that, to
win, you need 50% of the vote—plus, if you really want to be
sure, that handy little bit extra. |
