To those of you who have come to the conclusion that Catherine Harris’s decision to certify Florida’s election results should be the end of the Presidential campaign — I urge you to recognize the critical importance and long term ramifications of the legal eagles’ battle in Florida and Washington DC. Most people believe it makes little difference whether Bush or Gore become President. I agree, which is why I voted for Ralph Nader. What is extremely important is the procedure by which this election is decided. Make no mistake, the issue is not who will be President, but to what extent our election procedure is prone to manipulation and the efficacy of the mechanisms designed to limit such corruption. The bottom line: How fair are our elections and how can we make sure elections aren’t stolen. Sadly, in an age of sound bites, this issue is simply to big to fit the requisite 5 seconds for TV broadcasts.

What we know for sure is that the election in Florida occurred in highly dubious circumstances that jeopardize the legitimacy of our electoral process. I’ll boil down some of the biggest problems that should have incited a mass of public outrage but, unfortunately, has simply resulted in a bored, lethargic public. In no particular order : Election officials in Florida “corrected” several thousand absentee ballots after they were received. These ballots eventually became votes for Bush after the republican officials “fixed” them. Corresponding ballots for absentee Democrats were thrown out for being incomplete.

In several counties, racial and ethnic groups were subjected to unconstitutional denial of their right to vote. The abuses included requiring three forms of ID to vote, denial of minorities voter registration, minorities being turned away early from polls and minorities being asked to PROVE that they were not felons. More than 20,000 votes were discarded because ballots were punched twice. Despite several protests and an admittedly complicated ballot, these votes will forever be discounted.

Tens of thousands of votes have not been counted because the chad was incorrectly punched. Despite the fact that many of these chads are nearly separated from the ballot , these have yet to be counted. Furthermore, the inventor of the punch machine has publicly explained that dimpled chad are the result of too many ballots being punched, which prevents the punch from going all the way through. Unfortunately, this outdated method requires election officials to manually clear out the chad every so often to correct this — a procedure which was not utilized. Unfortunately, our politicians feel that it is perhaps more important to appeal to the public than the rule and spirit of the law.

Our political system’s weaknesses are nearly deafening to those watching the spinmeisters massage “public opinion” in an attempt to keep people patient. Essentially, it is as important to keep people from getting too bored with our process as it is to abide by election procedures. The attempt by some public figures to discredit manual counts as improper, unnecessary and disingenuous should be seen as no less than an act of treason. At the end of the day, counting ballots by hand is the only way to make sure elections are tabulated accurately — particularly in elections using half-century-old voting machines.

Indeed, the legitimacy of our entire election process has crystallized into an epic legal struggle in Florida. The impact of these court decisions is difficult to overstate; future elections will be subject to the courts’ decisions. The question we need to ask is not whether Bush or Gore won the presidency. Essentially the voting public flipped a coin and statistically it could go either way. The question we should demand be answered from our elected officials is: Will you do everything possible to count all the votes? If the answer is no, if the right for a manual recount is trumped by an arbitrary deadline, why should we vote at all?

Brian Metcalf

Senior

Political science