George W. Bush won the US presidency by a margin of only 537 votes. That was the extent of his victory in the complex and unsettling muddle that was the Florida count in 2000. Even die-hard Republicans found it hard to allege that the punch card ballot machines used in the state and the erratic registration of voters were not ideal. Nevertheless the Supreme Court ruled that the recounting had to stop and thus Al Gore lost his bid to succeed his boss Bill Clinton in the White House.
Americans quite properly put the controversy behind them. Everyone rightly realized that if the crucial Florida result continued to be questioned, the presidency itself would be damaged.
Florida promised to sort out the mess in time for this election. Until recently, it seemed this was happening. Now, however, former President Jimmy Carter has expressed concern over the new arrangements which he believes are still inadequate. He is also accusing election officials in Republican-run Florida of bias — President Bush’s brother Jeb is the state governor. There have been suggestions of attempts to disqualify up to 22,000 African Americans with criminal records because they are likely to vote the Democratic ticket. Meanwhile, only 61 Hispanic criminals, who are likely Republican voters, have been removed from the electoral list. It is also said that state election officials engineered the inclusion of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot. The veteran campaigner Nader is far more likely to take votes from Democrats than Republicans which will further undermine the chances of the Kerry ticket in Florida.
All of this could be academic if Bush is a landslide victor. Allegations of electoral ambiguities, if not downright malpractice in other states, have not led to any firm accusations, perhaps because some of the suspected fixing favors Democrats. The Kerry camp may have decided to keep its powder dry unless it finds itself in the same situation as Al Gore in 2000 and needs to go to the courts again to dispute highly marginal results.
Though the Democrats’ decision is understandable — why would Americans want to start worrying about the legitimacy of the electoral process at this stage? It is nevertheless disturbing to outsiders that the future direction of the world’s only superpower could perhaps hang on a thin thread of electoral shenanigans. Statistically, even after the careful 2000 recounts, those 537 votes were within a plus or minus margin of error that could have given the state and thus the presidency to either candidate. The plus for Bush was that the Supreme Court put a deadline on the recounts when the latest tabulations showed that he enjoyed a gossamer-thin majority. The minus for the world in general and the Middle East in particular was that the White House was opened to the son of a president who ten years before had been snubbed and outwitted by Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush was going to get the Iraqi leader somehow. Osama Bin Laden and Sept. 11 gave him the excuse. For this error we are all, Americans included, paying the price and the final bill is far from in.
