THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2000, the one that introduced such terms as “dimpled ballots” and “hanging chads” to our perplexed national consciousness, marked us forever.
Americans waited a month until the Supreme Court decided George W. Bush beat Al Gore — even though Bush trailed Gore by more than half a million ballots cast by citizens in the general election. The results from Oregon and New Mexico weren’t fi nalized for days. Gore conceded, then retracted. Tiny bits of paper made headlines. Recounts began.
One big issue that dragged out
the eventual outcome was the role of absentee ballots cast by military personnel overseas, many of which didn’t carry a customary postmark. Did they count? Did they count in
every county of Florida, some of which had a heavy military connec- tion, or just in selected counties? What deadlines applied? For weeks, both political parties spun and wrangled and stalled and started. Ultimately, Bush managed to carry 30 states’ Electoral College votes to pull ahead by fi ve votes — 271 to 266.
What could go wrong? Ah, the Electoral College. It was designed to be a proxy organiza- tion, a microcosm of the nation’s preferences. This one-time voting by special state delegates was
intended to balance each individual state’s relative infl uence by giving each state two votes in a presiden- tial election, plus additional votes based on the number of U.S. representatives possessed by each state. This, they thought, would faithfully preserve states’ sover- eignties and refl ect diff erences in population, with more electoral votes for the bigger states. Thus, the idea of popularity spread across geography. In the days when cross-country communication took days or weeks, the concept of an electoral college made sense. States at that time chose their own voting days from April to November. Winner take all, they said: If your state chose a can- didate by anything from a squeaker majority to a landslide, all your electors voted for him in December. You’d send a messenger to Wash- ington, D.C., with your results. Just tally all the states’ electoral votes, and you’d know who was your next president. The one with the second- most votes got to be vice president. “What could go wrong?” they
thought.
Imagine this messy situation: the Electoral College in a tie vote. Even worse, the tie wasn’t between two men of diff erent parties, but be- tween a presidential candidate and his chosen vice-president! That’s what happened in the confused election of 1800. There were bal- lot mix-ups and debates. But after 35 repeated voting sessions in the House of Representatives all ended in ties, the winner, President Thom- as Jeff erson, fi nally emerged as victor over his own running mate, Aaron Burr.
After coming in second to Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, center, dashed his political dreams by killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
62 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2016
The founding fathers second- guessed themselves, and the Consti- tution was amended so that if there were any more Electoral College ties, at least they wouldn’t be be- tween running mates. (Burr would
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