Interesting to look back a bit. Note the Republican spin and lawsuits from the Republicans began almost immediately after the election.
Oh yes, if Bush prevails he will have won by suppression.
washingtonpost.com
An Indefensible Position
Saturday, November 11, 2000; Page A28
YESTERDAY IT was the Bush campaign that
adopted an indefensible position in the
Florida election dispute. If there's one
principle to which everyone involved in the battle should subscribe, it's that Florida officials
should do everything possible to count accurately every decipherable vote cast in Tuesday's
presidential election. This is a case where, literally, every vote matters.
Yet the Bush campaign threatened yesterday to block such an effort. Former secretary
of state James A. Baker indicated on the campaign's behalf that it would "vigorously
oppose" further counting, meaning presumably the Gore campaign's proposal that there
be hand counts of the ballots in selected counties. There has been a count and a
recount, both by machine, and that should be enough, Mr. Baker said. He accused the
Gore campaign of seeking "to keep recounting, over and over, until it happens to like
the result," and lectured instead, only three days after the election, that there has to be
"some finality to the election process."
But the absentee ballots won't be counted until next Friday. They alone could be
enough to tip the apparent balance. Meanwhile, it is said that there may be thousands
of ballots that were apparently punched for one or the other candidate, but not hard
enough to make a hole large enough for the machines to read. Those are the ballots a
hand count might retrieve. These aren't ballots spoiled by having been punched for
more than one candidate. Those aren't retrievable; it's not possible to be sure which
punch was intended. Nor are they the ballots the Gore people claim were mistakenly
punched for Pat Buchanan.
One county has agreed to conduct a hand count; two others have agreed to sample
some precincts to see if the machines missed many votes. The county officials who are
properly charged under Florida law with making such decisions will determine on the
strength of the sampling what to do next. The Bush camp comes perilously close to
suggesting that the votes a hand count might detect should be suppressed even if they
can be readily identified. That can't be right.
The goal has to be to get as accurate a count as possible, one that as many people as
possible will in the end regard as legitimate. The Gore people put that legitimacy at risk
the other day, when they threatened to sue and suggested with great certainty that they
were about to be robbed of a victory that was rightfully theirs.
It may be understandable that the Bush campaign responds in kind, but understandable
isn't the same as acceptable. The Bush people likewise jeopardize the perceived
legitimacy of the end result if they seem to seek to protect their lead of a few hundred
votes by turning a blind eye to uncounted others that can be easily found. Count 'em;
that's how you decide who won.
It bears repeating that the stakes here are larger even than the prize of the White House
itself. A breathtakingly close election has put the nation, its electoral system and its two
parties under pressure. How the country weathers the challenge depends very largely
on the behavior of the two candidates. If they squeeze and manipulate the system for
every possible partisan advantage, they damage far more than their own places in
history; whoever eventually staggers across the finish line will have damaged his own
chance for a successful presidency. If they stand aside as their designees jockey for
advantage, the damage is just as grave. Is it really too much to ask that both Al Gore
and George W. Bush personally state that they will let Florida count its votes; that they
will respect the result; and that they will refrain from inflammatory claims in the
meantime?
© 2000 The Washington Post Co |
