I guess what bothers me about the Miami/Dade decision is that they stopped counting not because the count was perceived to be inaccurate but because an arbitrary time deadline had been set and it was concluded it could not be met. When you go into the voting booth, is it your expectation that the powers that be will count your vote only if they have time? Or is your expectation that they will count it no matter what, because voting is the one way in which citizens are supposed to be able to have a direct impact on how they are governed? Ironically, the timing of the deadline was reportedly driven by a desire to leave time for court appeals. Instead of trying to get it right to begin with, the court is saying, let's hurry up, get it wrong, and leave time for the lawyers to argue about how wrong it is. Warped to say the least.
The real irony is, this is perhaps the one election in modern U.S. history where that one vote of yours really could have mattered, at least in Florida and a handful of other states. And it is there that the conclusion seems to have been reached that it is less important to count those votes than it is to be done with the process NOW (even though the person who wins doesn't take office for another 54 days). I just don't get this massive hurry.
On one side of the equation we have votes being cast but not counted, and on the other side we have votes not being cast but counted nonetheless. I do not buy the analogy to the deadline for an evidentiary argument in a trial. This is different. I vote, count my vote. Not if you feel like it. Not if you have time. Just count it.
Why can't George Bush stand up, look into the camera with that damned sincere expression of his, and say: Look, I want to win, but I want to make absolutely sure that all of the votes are counted, and counted properly. Instead, he is saying, "Game Over, I won. If they didn't count the votes too bad."
I happen to agree with Bush that hand counting under the circumstances we saw is not necessarily accurate. Let the courts or a bipartisan commission sort that out if necessary. But the answer isn't to hurry when there is still time, and the answer isn't for both sides to scrounge and scuffle like a couple of hungry dogs trying to tear at the same piece of raw meat. |
