Tomorrow is a big day for America. Tomorrow we witness a great test of the institution that defines us as a nation, and that we cherish above all else. Tomorrow we will see if the standard operating procedure for American government can be hijacked and mutated at the slightest, most self-serving whim.

Tomorrow is the California recall election. For the good of democracy, here’s to hoping it’s a spectacular failure.

Tomorrow, voters in the nation’s most populous state will decide whether to keep Gray Davis, the governor they elected less than a year ago, or to install in his place a celebrity meathead, celebrity midget, celebrity porn aficionado or one of more than 100 other candidates, very few of whom have any political experience.

This recall, the revival of an archaic state government provision that hasn’t been enacted anywhere in more than 80 years, is truly treachery of our political system, and treachery in the worst way. It is the subversion of democracy disguised as democracy. It is a coup that utilizes an army of confused voters rather than soldiers.

The unfair and illogical nature of the recall is readily apparent in the process by which it was approved. The recall became a reality after a Republican U.S. Congressman, Darrell Issa, personally funded a petition for Davis’ ouster that only 1.3 million people, four percent of the state’s 33 million citizens, were required to sign. Nearly three-quarters of those signatures came from three of the richest, most Republican counties in the historically Democratic state.

The motivation for the recall was apparently Governor Davis’ inability, in his first six months in office, to reverse the $38 billion debt the state had amassed as a result of the Republican national government’s poor economic decisions. Issa and his cohorts apparently thought that throwing out the popularly elected governor, stalling government function for four months, racking up another $35 million in debt to pay for the recall and electing a womanizing, Hitler-admiring action movie star would cure all of the state’s ills.

Brilliant.

If California does appoint a new governor, the Republicans who initiated this operation will have successfully disrupted the established democratic process and insulted the intelligence and competency of the electorate. They will have ousted a governor not because he was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but simply because his politics conflicted with theirs, the will of the people be damned. They will have taken advantage of harsh economic conditions for which their party was responsible to contrive a new leader, one with a recognizable face and no other discernable skills.

What a dangerous new precedent to have set.

If anyone but Davis wins tomorrow, every partisan, self-interested entity in America automatically gains the right to scapegoat any who oppose it and ignore established popular sentiment to remake the democratic process to their liking.

From tomorrow on, every sore loser from the local school board to the presidency will have a precedent to baselessly interrupt the mechanisms of government and violate the will of the public. And is there really any doubt they will?

If the recall is successful, how far-fetched would it be for President Bush to introduce and push through Congress a similar provision for the national government? How far-fetched would it be for Bush to lose the 2004 election, only to petition a recall six months later? Such a situation is not beyond the realm of possibility, and would certainly sound the death knell for the American democratic system.

The voters of California can preserve the American way from this coup of democracy by simply doing what most of them are already adept at: not voting. If the polls opened in the morning and every man and woman over 18 refused to cast a ballot, in effect refusing to recognize this false democracy, true democracy would be preserved. But this is unlikely to happen.

Perhaps the best we can hope for tomorrow in California is mass chaos. If the polls closed with rampant mismanagement of ballots, overt political espionage, voter fraud and hanging chads, the whole recall process would be debunked. If, at the end of the day, California faced a situation like that of Florida in 2000, democracy would, ironically, be preserved. The recall would be proved the grievous mistake that it is and we could return to our established, fair, system.

Here’s to hoping.