Myths
are being shattered in Election 2000. Here are just a few:
It turns out
that your vote DOES count, there is no more Democratic Southern
strategy (when Gore could not even carry his home state of Tennessee),
and all the technology in the world can't keep the networks from
looking extremely stupid.
Part of the
situation can be explained using an analogy drawn from a common
high school experience. You have the ideal prom date in mind,
but she gets taken by someone else. Now, you're left with deciding
between (let's say) two far less desirable girls. You have to
attend the prom as a social imperative, but you're not happy with
the prospects available to you.
Human nature
dictates that you will be undecided for a long time, perhaps even
tossing a coin to make the final decision.
Extrapolate
this to millions of voters, and it's not difficult to explain
both the closeness of the election, as well as the large number
of undecideds late in the game.
There are
more factors in play, of course.
Since everyone
is a victim, and since every problem that one encounters must
have a remedy (usually via the government), we now have large
groups of individuals who claim that they were confused by a ballot.
It matters not that this ballot was approved by the proper officials,
and it matters not that the opportunity existed to obtain a replacement
ballot at the time of voting, after getting your questions answered.
Truth be told,
many of the people involved did not know that they were confused
until someone pointed it out to them!
Simply put,
in any form of human endeavor, there IS no perfect system. Even
the hand recount has potential problems given the fragile nature
of the ballots, and the possibility for errant holes to develop
in the cards.
Moreover,
any form of human endeavor can be sabotaged if the minutiae of
process is emphasized over results. How accurate and detailed
should the triage nurse be? Do we really want her to spend so
much time getting the order of patients correct that one of them
dies in the emergency room?
What if you
get a parking ticket for expired time and find out that instead
of timing out 60 minutes, the meter actually expires at 59 minutes
and 48 seconds? How far would you pursue your case?
Sad to say,
the more the election process is scrutinized, the more it will
become apparent that some Pandora's boxes should never be opened.
Florida was by no means the only close state in this election.
Forgotten
in all the discussion is the rather large point that beyond the
design problems and miscounting of ballots, there is NO remedy
for an ill-informed, dense, apathetic, and lazy electorate.
Add to that
a long history of inferior candidates, and the results should
not surprise anyone.