A Modern Democracy Bagged, Feudal Contents
posted 4th December 2000
by Ray Goforth

As American and many overseas readers will know, the fate of our presidential election turns upon the results of the vote recount in Florida. The focus has been on tens of thousands of ballots where the vote counting machines failed to register a choice for presidential candidate. There are a variety of reasons why this might occur ranging from improperly maintained equipment, debris in the ballots, to ballots that had not been punched through completely. The remedy provided by Florida law is to count each ballot by hand. The three person Miami-Dade Canvassing Board initially voted at 9:00 am on November 23rd to hand count the 11,000 ballots that had failed to register any vote for the presidential candidate. This "undercount" was significantly higher than registered in previous presidential elections and triple that of surrounding counties which used more modern vote tabulation machines. Shortly after voting to initiate the hand count, a mob of approximately 200 people descended upon the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections office. The crowd pushed their way past guards into the building threatening public officials and demanding that the recount be halted. After some period of time, police were able to move the mob outside the building. Once outside the building, the crowd chased down Joe Geller, chairman of the local Democratic Party, because they falsely believed he had tried to steal a ballot (he had a sample ballot). After being struck several times in the head by members of the crowd, police arrived and escorted him away from the scene.

Louis Rosero, a Democratic aide, was also punched and kicked by the crowd as he made his way into the building. Not far away, a brick was thrown through the window of the local Democratic Party headquarters. Democratic party officials protested these actions and charged that they had been orchestrated by State Republican party officials. It turned out that these charges were in fact correct as members of the mob freely admitted that different Republican Party entities had paid for their airfare, their hotel, their rental cars and provided them with logistical directions for the "protest." Three hours after initially voting to authorize the recount, the canvassing board suddenly reversed itself and announced that no recount would take place. Two members of the canvassing board declined all comment but the New York Times reported that one of the members Dan Leahy acknowledged that the intimidation tactics had contributed to their decision. While I did not vote for either Al Gore (Democratic Party Candidate) or George Bush (Republican Party Candidate), I must admit that I would certainly rather have Al Gore as our next president. However, I am more concerned with the stability and integrity of the electoral process than I am with the eventual outcome. I believe that all Americans should be profoundly disturbed by the specter of a "rent-a-mob" paid for by a political party with the explicit goal of stopping votes from being counted. More disturbing than the actual conduct of the mob are the claims by right-wing pundits that this in fact was merely "democracy" in action.

As if a crowd of 200 people shouting "we know where you live" at the elected officials charged with making the decision as to whether a recount should take place, is not intended to threaten and intimidate. As if flying party activists in from out of state to assault and batter officials from the opposing political party is not organized thuggery. Winning a democratic election happens when your candidate gets the most votes, NOT when you intimidate election officials into not counting all of the votes. Far worse election violence occurs regularly around the world. Moreover, it often happens even in the United States (I once worked on a California State Assembly campaign where the local Republican Party hired security guards to wait at polling places and intimidate latino voters). What makes these events different for me is the attitude of the Republican Party as a whole. They know that Al Gore got 300,000 more votes than George Bush. They know that Al Gore won the Electoral College (not counting Florida). They know that if all the ballots are counted in Florida that Al Gore will most likely win there. Yet, they show no sense of shame at launching legal maneuver after legal maneuver aimed at stopping the vote count. Moreover, they cheer gleefully as a paid mob batters Democratic Party officials and intimidates the canvassing board into abandoning their announced recount of the votes. Is the Republican Party so desperate to regain power that they will justify any conduct, any distortion of the democratic process? Are we to be governed by a President who lost the popular vote but through jackbooted intimidation managed to capture an Electoral College majority? This election marks a sharply negative turn in national American politics. If the eventual outcome is not transparent and just, I fear that the cycle of violence will only get worse.