Election 2000: Chad Happens

• Share

When we were children, we learned where democracy comes from, how the people came to rule, about the government of the many rather than the government of the few. But what good is that machinery if there is no majority? No one taught us what would happen if there were a tie.

New Mexico has worked this out. If the voters deadlock, the law hands the outcome over to a game of chance: the candidates can flip a coin, draw a card from a deck or play a hand of poker--assuming they can agree. Florida law allows for drawing straws. But this tie is elusive, imperfect as the election that produced it because when you are shuffling through 6 million votes and double-punched ballots and hanging chads and missing postmarks and the whole archaeology of human frailty, every count by machine or by hand yields a different result, each so close as to be all but meaningless. So the combat went hand to hand, both men clawing for every last vote. Ballot boxes were wrapped like presents in crime-scene tape; guards protected overseas ballots around the clock; and both sides all but accused each other of trying to steal the election. And so the only thing we know for certain is that our next President will be born in the margin of error.

We live in overtime now, we work overtime, the clock runs out and we keep on playing, which might explain the public's patience with the candidates' choice not to surrender. Americans forgive ambition; we like grit and persistence, treat them as virtues as long as the cause seems just. An old Republican well into his 70s telephoned an even older Democrat last week in Washington. Both men had flirted with the presidency; one had even survived a primary or two. The Republican asked his old friend, Could you do it? If you were this close, could you turn away? The other guy, now past 80, laughed and said, I couldn't, and neither could you.

And neither could George Bush or Al Gore. It is more our fault than theirs that the race is instant-replay close; neither could be expected to quit while the law lets him think he can win. Bush is a baseball guy; he understands extra innings. But under the rules, he's sure he's the victor; a few foul balls and close calls are just part of the great game. Last week's recounts all put him ahead, even after hundreds of unpostmarked overseas military ballots were thrown out, and the only thing that could change that was a hand recount of three heavily Democratic counties. On what grounds would it have been "grownup" or "statesmanlike" for Bush to have walked off the field?

Gore for his part was taught at his prep school to choose the hard right over the easy wrong, which is a good lesson, assuming it's easy to tell those apart. He knows he won the national popular vote, but under the Constitution, that does not matter. He believes he won Florida as well, but his virtual victory slipped through his hands and broke into tiny pieces, which he was desperately trying to paste together by hand and by law. Was Gore just supposed to concede all over again, with Democrats across the land complaining that the only reason he hadn't won was because of botched ballots, undercounted votes and the blind zeal of secretary of state Katherine Harris, co-chair of Florida's Bush campaign? She did everything she could to delay the hand counts that Florida law allows, and then said that since counties had missed their deadline, the results wouldn't count.