[ALBSA-Info] US coping with Albanian style feelings

[Kreshnik Bejko]

*contested elections, alleged fraud..does this ring a bell? What is 
interesting about this article is how the Americans propose to solve the 
dispute. It shows a clear
gap between the mindset of Albanians and Americans (westerners)*

Will America accept the winner?

A hyper-close election result, dogged by dispute, could harm the president’s 
legitimacy.

By Peter Grier
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor


WASHINGTON


The most important question arising from the extraordinary presidential 
election of 2000 may not be who won, but whether the nation will accept that 
the eventual winner was fairly chosen.

A president pursued by doubts about his legitimacy would be hobbled in 
dealings with Congress, foreign governments, and even (perhaps especially) 
the press. If the situation festers, it could undermine one of America’s 
proudest boasts: that it is a nation of orderly laws, not capricious men.

Yet it now appears an election in which 100 million votes were cast could be 
decided by about a condo’s-worth of Floridians.

In such a situation, opportunities for missteps by both Al Gore and George 
W. Bush and their followers abound. The manner in which Mr. Gore and Mr. 
Bush handle the situation over the next several days could be critical.

"This is a once-in-a-century cluster of events that pose an extraordinary 
challenge to our political class and our political leaders: to manage a 
situation that has a potential to do serious damage to ... our 
constitutional system," says Thomas Mann, a government-studies scholar at 
the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The last time America faced such an uncertain outcome in its presidential 
race, in 1960, Richard Nixon conceded to John F. Kennedy and slipped gently 
into the night – even though he was convinced that fraud had made the 
difference. Nixon lost to Kennedy by only 0.2 percent of the vote.

Although Nixon was not a man known for giving political quarter, he quickly 
forswore any court challenge.

In later years, he said he was both worried about the nation and his own 
image. It proved a shrewd move: a "sore loser" tag might have made his 1968 
comeback victory impossible.

For his part, JFK acknowledged the slimness of his margin by appointing 
Republicans as secretary of Defense and secretary of the Treasury. Such a 
show of bipartisanship might help soothe lingering bitterness from this 
year’s vote.

If George W. Bush wins, for instance, "he might be smart to appoint some 
Democrats to the Cabinet," says Thomas Cronin, a presidential scholar and 
president of Whitman College in Walla, Walla, Wash.

The electoral effect

The relationship between the popular vote totals and the election’s possible 
outcome is one factor creating the current delicate situation.

At time of writing it appeared possible that the candidate who received the 
most ballots will not be the one who sits in the Oval Office come January, 
thanks to the arcane US Electoral College system.

Americans schooled on the virtues of majority rule might find this difficult 
to accept. The last time a similar situation occurred was in the election of 
1888, in a far different political and cultural era.

The disparity could increase pressure to adapt an 18th-century political 
mechanism to modern times.

But the candidates ran their campaigns under the existing system, and to try 
to change the rules in retrospect would be grossly unfair.

In any case, the positive aspects of the Electoral College still apply, note 
scholars. It forces candidates to try to appeal to a wide swath of the 
nation. If the election was determined by popular vote, there might now be 
recounts under way in 50 states, not one.

"If we switched systems, I’m pretty sure people would quickly get nostalgic 
for the Electoral College," says Thomas Cronin.

More problematic in coming days may be the situation in Florida.

It is virtually without precedent in American history and has the potential 
to explode into a lasting controversy which colors the entire term of the 
nation’s next chief executive.

At time of writing, the state’s recount was not yet complete.

It might yet provide a definitive answer to the question of who won 
Florida’s decisive 25 electoral votes.

Or the question might not be settled until next week, after the deadline for 
the arrival of absentee ballots from state residents currently out of the 
country.

Palm Beach’s ballots

Or it might not be settled even then. The fracas in Palm Beach County, where 
some voters, are complaining that poorly designed ballots caused them to 
vote for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore, could be the subject of legal 
challenges that hold the very outcome of the election in question.

Mr. Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, did do disproportionately well in 
Palm Beach, at least nominally a Democratic area.

Privately, Democrats maintain that the ballots, marked with a misleading 
arrow, caused 2,000 voters to cast mistaken ballots – more than enough to 
swing the presidency itself.

The result might be that millions of Americans will believe Gore won 
Florida, but that Bush will be awarded Florida and thus the Oval Office.

"Bush and Gore need to get together to figure out how to deal with this 
enormous feeling of injustice," says Paul Light, vice president and director 
of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution here.

"There was a problem with the way that ballot was configured."

Staff writers Gail Russell Chaddock and Abraham McLaughlin in Washington 
contributed to this report.


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