Lessons of the 2000 Election.

• Author: SAMPLES, JOHN
• Position: United States

"... Election 2000 showed the continuing vitality of the American political tradition of limited government and individual liberty."

MANY PEOPLE believe that Election Day 2000 yielded no clear guidance for the world's leading democracy. This view's grounds are not hard to discern: the narrow presidential election and the ensuing straggle in Florida combined with an evenly divided Senate and a small Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Accordingly, there are predictions of gridlock and rising partisanship.

We believe that the unrelenting focus on the struggle in Florida for the presidency obscured the deeper meaning of Election 2000. Here are six important lessons to be learned and recommendations to deal with them:

1. CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION

   Congress should set up a commission to recommend changes in the nation's electoral systems. The states should have the choice of accepting the reforms and the obligation to pay for them.

   Florida is not the only state that has problems with its election system. Others have reported claims of multiple voting, multiple voter registrations, voting by unqualified persons (including legally disenfranchised felons), and other issues with their election systems and procedures. Although Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution vests the power to prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives in the state legislatures, it also states, "but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Chusing [sic] Senators." The power to make or alter regulations certainly encompasses the power to make recommendations to state and local governments on the holding of elections.

   It should be borne in mind, however, that Article II, Section 1 vests the power to appoint electors for the office of president exclusively in the state legislatures. Article IV, Section 4 also guarantees "to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," which certainly grants to Congress the power to commission a report containing detailed advice on how presidential elections should be carried out.

   We call, therefore, upon Congress to appoint a commission for the purpose of examining the procedures for the popular election of electors in the several states and to make recommendations in at least four areas:

   Registration procedures. Reports of legally disenfranchised citizens or of noncitizens casting ballots indicate that additional safeguards may be necessary to protect the integrity of the ballot. In some cases, unqualified persons may believe that they are, in fact, qualified to vote; in others, they may intend to corrupt the process. In either case, such "voting" cannot be tolerated in a constitutional republic based on the concept of citizenship.

   Voting technology. Many citizens were startled to learn that the technology for casting and recording votes in a number of areas of the country is twice as old as some of the voters. As Florida proves, such technology can become an issue when the vote totals are extraordinarily close. Antiquated technology can lead to possible voter confusion and subjective judgments by canvassing officials, who are called upon to "divine" the intent of the voters in the cases of disputed ballots. Aged technology thus brought us the "dimpled chad," a term that should be dropped from the vocabulary of American elections. The commission should examine the potential of voting by computer and, more cautiously, the prospects of Internet voting.

   Identification of qualified voters. The process of receiving and casting ballots is absurdly lax and ought to be reformed. In most areas, people wishing to cast ballots need give the local election workers merely a name and an address to be issued a ballot. No identification is requested. One could quite easily vote a number of times merely by giving the names and addresses of registered voters at a number of polling places. Further, giving merely a name and an address would allow one to cast the ballot of another person who might come in to vote later, only to find that his or her ballot had already been cast.

   Absentee ballots. The drive to increase the use of absentee ballots has diminished the significance of a major act of citizenship and created many opportunities for electoral fraud. Absentee ballots should be available solely to those who cannot go to a polling place because of disability or absence. The absentee system opens up great opportunities for dirty tricks and effective disenfranchisement of voters. For example, such ballots in Oregon may have been collected by strangers posing as election workers, who then may or may not have mailed them. This form of voting should receive heightened scrutiny.

   Some observers agree with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D.-N.Y.), who has called for Federal matching grants to pay for changes in voting systems. We disagree. The funding of elections, including voting technology and election staffing, should be left entirely to states and localities. The running of elections is a legitimate function of state and local governments, and the temptation of a Federal budget surplus should not entice Congress to relieve states and localities of their obligation to fund their own elections.

   However, Federal funding rarely comes without strings, and a new Federal presence could expand in the future. A permanent commission funded in part by the Federal government would push the U.S. onto a slippery slope toward much greater national control over all elections.

2. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

   The disputed election of 2000 has brought many calls for changes in the way we elect our presidents. Shortly after Election Day, Senator-elect Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) proposed abolishing the Electoral College, and Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) had already introduced a constitutional amendment to that end. The fact that the Electoral College may produce a president who did not win a plurality of the vote is hardly enough to justify its elimination. It still has several advantages over direct election of the president.

   Restraining power. The framers of the Constitution were worried that, like the republics of antiquity, the new nation could degenerate over time into a political tyranny. They sought to constrain and limit the exercise of arbitrary political power through constitutional checks and balances. Their debates about how to elect the president focused primarily on limiting power. They worried that a too-strong president might threaten individual liberty. They knew also that Congress' power needed to be checked by the president.

   How does the Electoral College limit the abuse of power? The framers fully considered direct election by the people. In 1789 and today, direct election would mean election by the great population centers, now mostly found along the two coasts. The framers feared that the populous states would abuse this power and mistreat smaller states. They also believed that direct election by the people would mean voters picked "favorite sons" from each state or locality, leading to multiple presidential candidates and no clear choice for the office. By allocating electors partly on the basis of statehood (each state gets at least three), they created an Electoral College that provides...