Hi Bosco, An interesting article, but it sounds simply like a typical administrative foulup, though it would be troubling if it only happened to black voters.
I'm normally a knee-jerk opponent of constitutional amendments (like the ERA, term limits, balanced budget. etc.), but I'd be very inclined to support one that established a uniform national voting procedure - at least for federal elections.
And regarding your comments on Steve's thread, I just don't see how the Seminole Co. case can work to Gore's favor. My understanding is that the Dem's didn't need to fill in any fields that were left blank due to a software glitch, but if they were prevented from doing so, then they may have a case. But then there's the problem of a remedy. Gore's making such an issue of the sanctity of making sure that every vote is counted seems to preclude his ability to make a case for throwing out 15,000 validly cast votes. He'd then make Jimmy Swaggart look like a paragon of sincerity. Nevertheless, I'm increasingly coming to believe that conservatives ought to hope that Gore finds some way to end up the winner in this election.
And on the issue of machine vs. human counts of votes, here are some comments from Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution (a left-leaning think tank though I have no idea about Rauch's politics. I've found a couple articles in Reason, a libertarian publication, that would show a Gore bias, but his style can mask his opinions for someone as dull as I):
washingtonpost.com
In any election, the first counting of ballots is, he says, the only count that is "double-blind." Voters and vote counters can only guess at the effects of their decisions on the election's outcome. After the initial count, each side knows exactly how many additional votes it would take to tilt the election for or against its candidate. "This knowledge," Rauch writes, "inevitably raises questions about every decision made regarding the subsequent recount efforts." The problem is compounded, Rauch notes, when the recount is manual:
"When partisan election officials know for a fact that a few votes could change the outcome, they can't help but be tempted to tilt their recounts accordingly. And, even if they resist the temptation, who will believe them? The counters simply know too much about the votes' importance to seem above suspicion."
And, as if you didn't have enough to do, here's an op-ed piece from my favorite political analyst (I even wrote him in as my Presidential vote in 1992, with PJ O'Rourke as Vice President - I lived in DC where voting is an exercise in futility).
The Great Political Tune-Out
By Robert J. Samuelson
Thursday, November 30, 2000; Page A37
No self-respecting screenwriter would have submitted this election script. It is too contrived. The antagonists (Bush, Gore and their lackeys) are too self-absorbed and self-interested. There are no heroes. Though there is ample drama, little of it is inspiring. Still, the very pettiness on both sides unintentionally reveals why more and more Americans detest politics.
It is not simply disappointment with the candidates or, in this case, their casual hypocrisy. Bush promised to be a unifier. Right. He wouldn't even meet with Gore. Meanwhile, Gore said he would "fight for you" when he really meant that he would fight for himself. But popular disillusion with politics transcends personalities. The paradox is that Americans are increasingly affected by government (Social Security, Medicare, taxes, college loans--it's a long list) even while they're increasingly disconnected from politics.
There's a powerful logic that explains the apparent contradiction. It rests on three realities:
First: Government at the national level operates mainly outside of politics.
People pay less attention to politics because--for good or ill--neither party can do anything radical. Gridlock rationalizes popular indifference. Consider what happened in the Clinton years: not much. Government hardly changed. Some activities expanded slightly (example: children's health insurance); tax laws shifted modestly (example: new breaks for college tuition). But these were changes of detail; there were few major new programs. One big achievement--eliminating huge budget deficits--resulted mainly from two events beyond electoral politics: the end of the Cold War, which reduced military spending, and the economic boom, which resulted in an unexpected surge of tax revenues. Similarly, the end of the Cold War has made Americans less concerned about foreign policy leadership.
Second: Governing less, politicians are more and more preoccupied with personal advancement and survival.
Although politicians have always been ambitious, their obsession has grown. One reason is the weakening of political parties and voters' party allegiances. This makes politicians more insecure and more responsible for their own fate. They're freelancers, campaigns never stop, and there's more time for politics. Almost all indicators of congressional workload (bills introduced, hearings, laws enacted) have declined since the 1970s. One exception is the length of daily sessions--perhaps because senators and congressmen crave more TV exposure.
Third: Politicians increasingly define themselves by what they're against.
Unable to boast about what they've done (because they've done so little), politicians justify themselves by the people and policies they oppose. Rhetoric is not just a debating tactic. In an electronic age, it is a marketing tool intended to incite anger and amass campaign contributions. Politicians construct their virtues on their adversaries' alleged vices. Opponents must be more than mistaken. They must be immoral or even evil. Often, what's politically useful slips into genuine self-righteousness--President Clinton's impeachment being an obvious example. But the impulse is thoroughly bipartisan.
The resulting style of politics increasingly offends the vast middle of the American electorate. (Of course, ideologues of both the left and right are also disappointed, because their agendas--lacking anything like majority support--cannot be enacted.) This politics concentrates on personal ambition and features fear and sensationalism.
No one will have failed to notice that this has been precisely the pattern since Election Day. Gore and Bush have single-mindedly focused on victory. They have paid only lip service to the larger national interest of fortifying the legitimacy of the next president. Each side has brandished inflammatory rhetoric, accusing the other (in somewhat different words) of trying to steal the election.
Contrasted with the extreme language, the on-the-ground reality is a largely blameless ambiguity. Democrats have a case that many uncounted ballots could mean the election goes to the wrong guy. Republicans have a case that trying to guess voters' intentions is a practical and moral morass that might not improve accuracy. Perhaps reasonable people could have crafted a compromise that would have seemed "fair." But no one was being particularly reasonable.
Here's the larger point. Politics is increasingly perceived as the realm of the unreasonable. On some issues--notably abortion and guns--masses of Americans passionately disagree. But by and large, the country is not bitterly divided or angry now in the way it was in the 1960s (Vietnam, civil rights) or in the 1970s and early 1980s (Watergate, double-digit inflation and deep recessions). It is politicians and the wider political class--pundits, talking heads, dedicated partisans--who are increasingly divided and bitter. They have a stake in their differences.
The contrast between how ordinary people feel and how the political class behaves is a turnoff. People tune out, because they don't share (and don't want to share) the self-serving stridency and anger. Politicians have many explanations of why they're held in low esteem: The "corruption" of campaign finance; the "undue" influence of "special interests"; or gridlock itself. The more obvious cause is that people find very little to admire in their political leaders.
There are two ways to judge this widening gap between the public and the political class. One is that it's fairly harmless. It's the luxury of good times, when not much is needed or demanded of government. America's leaders have shrunk in stature because they are cursed to live in a period of national calm. The other possibility is that politics, which is supposed to reconcile differences and lower passions, is doing just the opposite. It is generating outrage rather than containing anger. It is a poisonous cyst, threatening to contaminate the courts, the press and broader popular opinion. |
