Enjoying the debacle

12/15/00

Call me crazy, but I’ve really enjoyed this Election 2000 circus and hope it continues for another few more months.

But it’s all over now, right? Well, not necessarily. Lest we forget, it is indeed the votes of the electoral college that really count in the end. And the electoral college has no constitutional obligation to vote in any other way except however they please. And historically, in very close elections the electors have a tendency to take this power to heart (or the ballot as the case may be) and do odd things with their vote.

In 1960 for example, the eight unpledged electors from Mississippi and six Kennedy electors from Alabama voted for Harry Byrd and Strom Thurmond. One Nixon elector from Oklahoma cast his vote for Harry Byrd and Barry Goldwater.

For Bush, it would only take two electors to dissent, and he would no longer have a majority. If no one gets a majority, it’s off to a fabulous congressional circus to really kick this millennium off right.

Now in this day and age of blind and irrational party loyalty, it’s a long shot. But ask yourself, isn’t it at least possible that just maybe two electors slated for Bush might not vote for him. That just maybe, some of those electors, like from Arizona or New Hampshire, might feel that McCain got the Republican shaft. That maybe, God willing, a mere two electors actually have a conscience and recognize the depth of inequality in our voting system. And maybe there might be an odd Republican here or there that isÊashamed of the Supreme Court for having done everything in its power to avoid leveling that playing field.

Richard C. Brice
McLean, Va.

Legitimacy does not equal justice

12/14/00

If one thinks that a court win for Bush implies legitimacy for his case, remember O.J. Simpson won his court case also.

Legality is not synonymous with justice or truth. Victory is also not a vindication nor necessarily a rightful reward to the claimant.

What many of us take offence to, over and beyond a Bush victory, is the self-righteous touting that a totally dysfunctional, two-tiered, and highly racist legal system is suddenly pointed to as proof when it yielded the results the Bush partisans wanted.

Ryk Tompkins

Apathetic for a good reason

12/14/00

If anyone’s wondering why voters are apathetic these days, here it is in a nutshell: what’s the point of voting when your voice is ignored?

In the last two presidential elections I remember quite clearly Republican whining over the fact that Clinton did not have a clear mandate from the people (i.e. a landslide victory). It completely blows my mind, then, that their own candidate got fewer votes than the winner in the popular election, but they’re completely willing to wade in and twist the judicial system to take the presidency anyway. Where’s the rhetoric now? Is it good to perpetuate a corrupt system in the name of healing national wounds?

I don’t really care who is in the White House if the majority of the American people voted for that person. But I am deeply disgusted at the outcome of this election and have begun questioning the so-called democratic process. We elect people to represent us in the House and Senate by a majority of the popular vote, so why can this not hold true for the presidency as well?

The tragedy of this election is that America got screwed, not Al Gore. It’s not the 19,000 missing votes in Florida that are the problem; it’s the nearly 400,000 counted votes for Gore, putting him ahead of Bush being ignored.

Susan Shropshire

It’s time to pick up the fight

12/14/00

I’m 62, a grandmother seven times over, disabled, white, a Vermonter, an Independent, a 60’s civil rights non-violent activist, and I’m ready to take up the protest again.

The voter fraud, disenfranchising minorities, the poor, Jews, and senior citizens in Florida by a cabal of conservative Republicans, led by the candidate’s brother and his father’s old cronies spells coup.

This is more than an election result, this is an attack on the basic fabric of this country.

Marie Connors Heard

12/14/00

I imagine that many people are confused about the specifics of the Bush transition and what it might mean for the citizenry of the US.

Based on Bush’s words and actions during the election cycle and subsequent court challenges, I suspect that we will be seeing a transition to a “post-democratic” society, where oil companies and other corporateÊscumbags can do as they please while the Bush administration and its Supreme Court further encroach upon the freedoms of individuals.

Mark Lunt
Bristol, Conn.