At first, when I sat down to write this article about the South Florida voting fiasco, which has now transformed Palm Beach into the center of every American's universe, I thought that a comedic angle was appropriate.
You know, 30 minutes after Marge returned home thinking she voted for Al Gore, Domino's delivered a large pepperoni pizza to her doorstep instead.
But things in Palm Beach aren't very funny right now and, frankly, trigger our country's biggest challenge since World War II.
Exaggeration? I don't think so. Consider this: George W. Bush could become the 43rd president while he and most Americans believe that Gore won Florida's popular and electoral votes and should be the 'real' president.
The 'first' Florida recount was completed by Friday morning, November 10th and gave Bush a scant 300 vote lead, not nearly enough the offset the Palm Beach challenge.
Folks in Palm Beach are saying that the ballots were so confusing that Gore supporters unwittingly voted for Pat Buchanan or they punched two holes, one for Pat and one for Al. Reports say that 19,000 votes had more than one hole punched and, thus, have been thrown out. Reports don't say how many of these ballots had both the second (Buchanan) and third (Gore) holes punched.
Here's the American/Palm Beach challenge. Let's say -- and remember, no one can know for sure with our secreting balloting system -- that Gore woulda, shoulda won the election. It was only because his supporters either didn't ask election officials to clear up their confusion, didn't tell officials when they double-punched their ballots so they could be given news ones, or carelessly and unwittingly voted for Buchanan.
What should we do? Nothing.
To re-vote, as some Gore supporters want, would no less than destroy the integrity of our secret ballot voting system. No one knows who had which ballot and whether that person really was trying to vote for Gore at the time. Even if only those voters who cast ballots on Election Day were allowed to return, who's to say that both parties wouldn't try 'inducements' to ensure that these folks now vote for the right guy. Also, what if a substantial number of people who voted are now unavailable through out-of-town travel, sickness or, heaven forbid, death?
Also disregard claims that people in Palm Beach would never vote for Pat Buchanan. Reports said he received over 8,000 votes in the Republican primary in 1996. With our secret balloting, who's to say that Bush didn't suffer a backlash from Buchanan sympathizers? Maybe some of them didn't feel that Bush was strong enough on certain issues (immigration) and wanted to punish him. We simply don't know for sure -- and shouldn't -- who cast which vote and why.
It's possible that all this hubbub is being caused by only a few dozen people who may not even be absolutely certain that they miscast their votes. If the ballots were so confusing, how can they be absolutely sure of their error now when they weren't sure when they were in the voting booth? Would we have heard of this if the networks' early evening prediction of a Florida victory for Gore held up?
What if some Bush supporters now say that they accidentally punched Buchanan also? How can we know if the higher than expected Buchanan vote wasn't due to voting errors spread equally between republicans and democrats?
Talk is cheap. Our representative democracy isn't.
You can quickly see the risks of considering a new vote in Palm Beach. Of course, that doesn't make our challenge any less daunting. In fact, it makes it more real and more difficult, because we have no viable option other than to accept the consequences of our actions. Perhaps Palm Beach's ballots were ill-designed. But these ballots were reviewed and approved by democrats and republicans before they were issued, sample ballots were mailed to voters' homes, and a mid-day alert was issued on Election Day to poll officials to deal with early reports of this confusion. What else could have been done?
The Palm Beach fiasco should be considered a severe lesson -- the severest -- on personal responsibility. I won't suggest well-worn stereotypes about whether democrats or republicans are more or less likely to accept personal responsibility, but ya gotta marvel at people's chutzpah when they say, with a straight face, that a blank piece of paper could outwit them. Ya gotta marvel that in a free country people wouldn't think to ask an official for help. And, finally, ya gotta marvel at the implicit argument of Gore supporters that somehow, someone or something else is to blame. It certainly can't be they.
When faced with issues of cosmic proportions, reduce them to the simplest terms. Answer the following: do we preserve the integrity of our current voting system even if the wrong man is elected president for one term or do we hold a new election in Palm Beach just to be sure?
What if dozens or hundreds of counties across the country decide to hold new elections? How and where does it stop? Any possible cure is worst than the disease and will kill the patient.
America has elected 42 presidents in what we believe were fair and free elections. How we decide the election of the 43rd will determine whether we can elect another 43 -- or even the next one -- with a sense of integrity and confidence.
America will now see of what stuff we're truly made. We'll now see how our political system truly works under extreme pressure. We'll now see if people can accept the sometimes awesome and devastating consequences of exercising their civic duties.
The world will be watching.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M. Ed.
Approximately 955 words.
(c) 2000