As previously mentioned, the election of 2000 revealed serious voter fairness concerns, including inequitable vote evaluation through standardless hand counts. The close election exposed inherent disparities caused by different voting devices (punched cards versus mark sensing) within states and sometimes within counties. To follow up and answer questions from readers, consider the following:

In the example Republicans know that precinct "A" has more registered Republican voters than Democrats and the machine tally verifies that the precinct went Republican. However, within the whole COUNTY the Republicans are trailing the Democrats. What to do? It isn't even a close call... Demand a recount in precinct A and all other similar precincts, especially recount the under-votes, over-votes. It is certain that a hand recount of the 100 under-over-votes, even with Democrats watching, will produce some machine rejected new votes and statistically those new votes will favor the Republicans by the same ratio as the machine counted votes: 500/400 -- or 55% to 45%. Therefore, if the recount results in a recovery of 50 votes from the 100 under-over-votes, the Republicans will benefit with 28 of those while the Democrats will gain only 22. Multiply the 6 net difference times all precincts in the county and the results will be hundreds of votes gained. Notice in the recent Florida debacle Miami-Dade County had over six hundred precincts, Broward had over five hundred precincts, and Palm Beach County and Valousia Counties -- over four hundred precincts each. Gaining a net of only one vote per precinct is worth hundreds of new votes. Most precincts are set up to accommodate about 1,000-1,500 voters. Therefore, in an election where hand recounts are demanded for certain precincts and counties, the results are predictable. When those recounts are supervised by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and carried out by canvassing boards trained by the DOJ, the results are even more predictable.

So what happened in Florida? Why didn't Republicans demand a state-wide recount instead of allowing the Democrats to recount only four or five selected counties? Remember, -- Florida was operating under a U.S. DOJ "consent decree" based on prior complaints about voter discrimination within Florida. The decree covers only certain minority-dominated counties in the state. If, early on, the Republicans had demanded a recount (which under Florida law is optional -- not a requirement) many of the Republican counties would have refused because there was no apparent need and there was no DOJ present to enforce a consent decree. By the time it became clear where the effort was headed, the date for asking for a full recount had passed. Also, an honest recount in Republican counties would never have produced results like those of Broward County. In Miami-Dade, Broward, and Valousia counties, the canvassing boards were pressured into recounting by the U.S. DOJ AND those counties had a great deal of practice from prior years in counting dimples, pimples, scratches, and INTENT. The Republicans in this case knew that they were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place... The Democrats, using the DOJ's muscle, had out-foxed them.

Last week we mentioned three problems exposed by the election of 2000 but so far have discussed only two; the art of hand recounts and the U.S. Supreme Court's roll in elections. However, the effort to eliminate the Electoral College (EC) is probably the most serious.

Many people realize that the EC serves a great purpose in providing some balancing between large and small states but the College serves several other very important purposes. Suppose we used a national popular election to elect the President and had a close election like that of 2000. Instead of an isolated situation as in Florida, we would have the same thing nation-wide, in dozens of states and counties. If 2000 had been a direct popular vote election we certainly would have witnessed lawsuits in Wisconsin, Oregon, New Mexico, and Iowa, not to mention lawsuits in all counties with close calls. Unlike Florida, most states do not have sunshine laws and the re-re-re-counts would have been conducted behind closed doors. But, we also would have seen lawsuits in isolated counties across the country because both candidates would have been "mining" votes wherever there was a close result. There are approximately 3900 counties in the U.S., enough to guarantee full employment of lawyers for months after the election.

Much is made from the notion that Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College and therefore, we should change the system. Balderdash! -- Bush won the popular vote throughout the country until California's ballots were counted. As of this writing, California cast 10,158,752 votes and Gore won that state by 1,283,538. Gore won the national popular vote 50,148,801 to Bush's 49,790,449 or a 358,352 vote margin. This is a perfect example of one state's huge popular vote overwhelming numbers from all of the other states. Additionally, there are some 1,500,000 uncounted votes in 49 states plus nearly 1,000,000 uncounted absentee ballots in California which could easily offset the 358,000 difference. Those California absentee ballots may well favor Bush but we'll never know because once a clear winner is determined within a state the counting stops. Why waste money?

Consider the above numbers. It is obvious that a popular vote system would implement a plan where one state could overwhelm the net effect of many other states.

Another way to look at it: Votes cast by California in the election of 2000 exceeded the total votes of 19 other states by nearly 1,000,000. California cast 10,158,752 counted votes while Alaska, Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, Rhode Island, Idaho, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Maine, West Virginia, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, and Mississippi all combined cast only 9,251,361. In fact, with Kansas added the bottom 20 states cast only 10,261,057 votes; just 102,305 more than California. Notice also, California turned out less than 50% of eligible voters. What would happen if 55% turned out? -- That would mean another 2,000,000 voters and, if the ratio of Democrat to Republican held, another 100,000 net votes to Gore's national lead. But as it stands, an additional 2,000,000 voters would have no effect on California's 54 Electoral College votes. Under the Electoral College a 100% turnout in California would not effect overall results.

Another analysis is to compare the top ten to the bottom half of the votes. A total of 99,939,250 counted votes were cast. The top ten states cast 51,897,144, well over one-half the total votes. The bottom twenty-five states cast 16,827,924 votes; less than 17% of the total.

The most simplistic comparison is that 10 states cast more than half the votes while 40 states cast less than half.

The EC system does not balance the small states with the large states; it just slightly reduces the disparity. Even with the Electoral College Bush had to win 31 states to prevail. Using the popular vote, Gore could have LOST pluralities in Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Vermont, Delaware, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Maine and WON. In other words, in the election of 2000 Al Gore would have won a popular vote election by winning the plurality (as he did) in the ten states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, and California -- provided he lost the other forty states by less than the total of 358,352; his actual margin in the national popular vote.

The above analysis is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to anticipated concerns of eliminating the EC. With the EC and the two party system, almost all Presidential elections are won with a healthy plurality of states. With a popular vote system the door would be open for a multitude of other parties to siphon votes from the two major parties and produce results much like those seen in third world countries. It is conceivable to have ten or fifteen parties running in each election (the 2000 election had ten choices in many states) and giving the winner only 20-25% or less of votes cast. With that small a margin, and only a 50% turnout, the winner would go into office with the approval of about 10% of eligible voters. This was a big concern of the Founding Fathers who feared that most colonies would vote for "favorite sons" instead of national figures and it is the reason large colonies acceded to the Electoral College system.

The EC forces states to come to a majority consensus within each state, which is then voted by electors toward a national consensus. This is the essence of a Republic.

Liberals from the most populous states argue that we could have run-offs to settle popular vote elections and avoid winners with small percentages of the total vote. That's the way it is done in third world countries like Peru and Bolivia. Liberals fail to explain the advantage of giving up the oldest surviving system on earth for a system which has failed throughout world history.

The Electoral College forces Presidential candidates to consider regional and state concerns rather than focusing on one or two issues which would excite the passions of the masses. While heavily populated states may be legitimately concerned about social problems, other regions may be just as concerned about roads, gun control, flood control, agriculture, or rural electrical power. The only way for rural states to be heard is for their votes to have impact. In a popular vote national election rural communities, counties, and states would be completely ignored.

Another alternative has emerged from some Democrats who are beginning to realize that it will be tough to get 38 states to agree to a Constitutional Amendment for elimination of the Electoral College. This new idea is to award some super number of electors to the winner of the popular vote. This concept recognizes that the EC provides only a slight balancing effect to the small states and that by awarding additional electors, the balancing effect would be wiped out. An example of the plan comes from Mario Cuomo, past Governor of New York. Cuomo suggests that the winner of the popular vote be awarded 102 additional electoral votes. Where did he get such an odd number for an offset? That's the number of U.S. Senators plus two electors for the District of Columbia. Why call it an offset? That's what Cuomo wants to do -- offset the effect of the EC. The concept is actually worse than a national popular vote because it swings the balancing effect from small states to a wide over-balance for large states.

The multiple party system along with the EC has served well for more than 200 years. It would be a travesty to change the EC now, but that is what liberal Democrats, supported by Washington, D.C. Republicans like Bob Dole, are proposing. Democrats now have a plurality in large cities and in most heavily populated northern states. Converting to a direct popular vote would favor Democrats in Presidential elections for years to come. Based on the history of political parties, it is not far-fetched to guess that the situation could soon change.

We are opposed to either party gaining any advantage over the other. The public is best served when there is healthy, balanced competition on all public policy views.