I love procedural dogfights. Election 2000 was a mainline hit for political junkies. Election 1972, and particularly the Democratic Convention, was a textbook in procedural manipulation. The McGovern forces masterfully challenged delegations, and defended other factions. They had to lose some critical votes, and betray trusted allies in order to mount the challenges that would push them over the top. In the end, they won, and we (The Dems) were slaughtered: we won Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. , and Richard Nixon went on to finish part of his term before resigning.
Cloture and filibusters in the Senate give power to the minority party. The Senate's rules are an endlessly fascinating and Byzantine procedural thicket of brambles. But I digress.
We have a real procedural and legal battle in Washington State right now, focused on King County (Seattle and environs). Following two previous machine recounts, we are now in hand recount mode. Yesterday, King County election officials admitted a major error tallying votes in the governor's race. Counting these votes may reverse the results and allow Christine Gregoire to "triumph" over Dino Rossi. the winner in the hand recount now under way. 561 votes were improperly disqualified. This looks totally legit.
There are court challenges coming from both sides, as well as the Secretary of State (the only Republican I voted for in 2004. The Supreme Court just struck down one Demo challenge. Court challenges aside, it looks like the election may hinge on these uncounted, and legitimate ballots that were discovered when an elected official (Larry Phillips, Metro Council Chairman) found his vote had been disqualified.
It will be fascinating to see where this all leads. The Republicans claim if the shoe was on the other foot, they would concede. Right. They say this with a straight face as they themselves prepare to file more lawsuits.
In one of the Seattle papers recently, an editorial mentioned that in any race as close as this (or, say, Gore v. Bush), you might as well do a coin flip. In every election, there are thousands of errors, undercounts, disqualified ballots, and clerical errrors. The plurality in most elections negate these problems. The Dems and GOP are slugging it out for every vote.
Whoever wins will have a taint, no question. POTUS was able to overcome that and still govern (alebeit not well).
Maybe this will all be settled before the swearing in, scheduled for Jan. 12, 2005. In the meantime, political junkies watch in endless fascination.
/jack
---o0o---
2 comments:
The recount in a race this close is the same as flipping a coin - just a lot more expensive. The race is a statistical tie.
Political types can't stand the thought that they would be governing due to the flip of a coin so we have this big recount. At least the party that requested it has to pay for it.
I have a Republican friend that says anytime the Democrats are in trouble they miraculously "find" a bunch of ballots that were missing that will help their cause.
I'm thinking, they just "found" the ballots the Republicans tried to hide earlier ...
I'm not quite that cynical. I do believe there is manipulation, at times, on both sides. Mainly, 'though, I think this process is a lot cruder than most people realize. It just usually never matters.
As for the disputed 600 votes in King County--this really seems legit. Someone made a decision not to count them. One person. And they were wrong.
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