The Contemporary Presidency: The Presidential Election of 2000: A Great Civics Lesson?

It is an axiom of politics, usually attributed to Otto Von Bismarck, that the public should never see the making of sausages or legislation. Perhaps in the light of the 2000 election, we should add to the list the casting and counting of votes. An election in doubt for thirty-six days after the vote had been cast was not a pretty picture. During this second presidential campaign, Americans were treated to a spectacle that included a concession and its retraction, more than fifty lawsuits (not counting the multitude of appeals), street demonstrations, public hearings, counts and recounts of the votes, and the somewhat less than riveting live broadcasts of ballot counting in action. Not until December 12, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered an end to manual recounts of Florida votes, did Americans finally have a decision. Looking for a saving grace, commentators took to referring to the election as a great civics lesson. But what was learned? Certainly the vocabulary of Americans was enriched with terms like undervote, overvote, chad (dimpled, pregnant, and swinging), and butterfly ballots. Americans also learned a great deal more about the workings of the electoral college than the standard textbooks contain. That critics of the electoral college have not simply been crying wolf in their claims that the system could produce a winner contrary to the popular vote probably came as surprise to many. In 2000, the theoretical happened. The runner-up in the popular vote was elevated to the presidency. On the other hand, with hindsight, it appears that the American public is willing to accept as president a candidate who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. Ironically, the workings of the electoral college may have masked some more fundamental civics lessons by turning the second campaign into the War for Florida. From a dramatic perspective, Florida was an ideal state to play out the second campaign. With the state's governor a brother to one of the candidates and a secretary of state who compared herself to the biblical Queen Esther, Florida was a scriptwriter's dream. Dramatic conflict needs a villain and Florida fit beautifully. Interestingly, Illinois had a higher percentage of uncounted votes than Florida and would have made an even better story. A state where the largest city is run by a legendary boss's son, who is also the brother of a presidential candidate's campaign manager, and where there are more than enough colorful characters to eclipse Florida, makes an even better story. But of course the election was not close in Illinois. Comforting as it may be to blame Florida or to more specifically blame the voting system used in the disputed counties, the problem is far broader and more intractable than demonstrated by a handful of counties. Americans, even many of those who study electoral politics, have for decades taken a complacent view of the mechanics of the electoral process. With the corruption of the nineteenth century long behind us and an ever increasingly sophisticated understanding of voting behavior, the details of election administration faded in importance. To be sure, those who study elections have always recognized that final vote tallies are always approximate. Every election has uncounted votes that should have been counted and votes counted that should not have been. Exactitude has never been a quality of elections, but for the most part these have been treated as random noise in the system. The 2000 election, then, provides an opportunity to relearn some old lessons about elections. First of all, the 2000 election reminds us that election administration is a local affair. To paraphrase another political axiom, this one from the late Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, "all elections are local." Of course, state administration of elections is rooted in the Constitution, but the process is further decentralized by the penchant of the states to assign the implementation of elections to cities and counties with little legislative guidance and even less financing. …