Spilled Milk?

Did you see any CSPAN today? I was flipping this morning and stopped on the confirmation hearings for the new attorney general. They then broke in on that to go live to the House for the joint session for the certification of the electors ballots in the Presidential Election. Since every political talk show I listened to yesterday had said something historical was going to happen I resisted the temptation to flip to DS9 on SpikeTV and watched the festivities.

First off, this was a real boring session, but eventually they did get to Ohio and the objection was raised and unlike 2000 there was a Senator attached to the objection. The count stopped and both houses retired for two hours of debate. I stayed with the House debate, although I have to say "debate" doesn't fit here any more comfortably than it did for the Presidential Debates earlier in this cycle. If there was even a shred of a chance that any voting member's opinion was going to be changed by today's discourse you couldn't see evidence of it watching the proceeding.

Two hours of "you are such sore losers" and "it wouldn't matter anyway" and "this is about the process and not this election" and "Its obvious to everyone that things are fine" and "Its obvious to everyone that the election was stolen." On some level the whole thing was a little bit embarrassing.

The Senator opposing the election has said she only did so to force a debate about election reform on a national stage. Opposition congressmen in their speeches said that the debate was a waste, degraded the process, and wasn't wanted by the public.

For the record, as a small slice of the public, I didn't have any problem with a two hour delay to talk about something so explosive.

But really, was this just so much spilled milk? I feel less jobbed this time than in 2000. At that time I couldn't understand the rush. We were constantly told that "the country needs to know who their president is!" Why? I mean, I think we knew at that time that Clinton was the president until we settled the election. How is it that "there isn't enough time" could ever be an excuse to live with a winner that we couldn't verify? 2000, however, is real spilled milk, spilled, curdled, dried out and hardened.

It seems, at least listening to the Kerry camp, that whatever did happen in Ohio would not have tipped the election. I can trust that they were the most motivated party involved, and if there had been something to find they would have found it. Plus, this time around W did win the popular vote, so there seems to be at least a hint of validity behind the whole thing.

So yes, I think the results of the 2004 election are at this point so much spilled milk. But, I agree with several speakers today that we really ought to be looking at just how it got spilled in the first place.

Two things stand out prominently in my eyes. First, the election, even though both sides claimed to be uniting, turned out to be about consolidating and energizing. Both parties seems to abandon any hope of winning over people of other persuasions and concentrated on getting out as many of their base as possible - particularly with an eye toward electoral math. This is sad on so many levels. I want to be convinced and inspired, not whipped into a froth for something I already believe in. I want to see governance and compromise, not louder shouting and piling on. Moreover, this produced a profoundly split electorate, and that leads to the other standout problem.

This is the second election in a row where the candidates have relied on gaming the system, looking at the states that are in play and trying to get out more of their guys than the other guy. There's no discussion here, no new ideas or conversation, just a process of wholesale get out the vote. This is bad for the ideological reasons above, but also because in the situation we had, where neither candidate is really compelling - no Reagan, no Clinton - it means that the results are going to be close. The standout problem here is although we're the world's greatest Democracy it appears that we're really not all that good at elections, and on top of that we have an incomparably voracious media to report on our crappy elections. This has to be fixed.

Problems with voter rolls, voting lines, election day electioneering and intimidation sound like they were pretty prevalent around the entire nation and working in favor or either party. The losing party in a close election cannot help but hear about this in the present day and age and would be irresponsible if they didn't pursue it. It doesn't make them sore losers. Denying the problems and "just moving on" doesn't make one patriotic; like an ostrich with its head in the sand it makes one ignorant. These things must be fixed. Conflicts of interest that don't pass the sniff test don't celebrate our democracy, they make people uncomfortable. Two elections in a row now we've had a bitterly contested state where the Secretary of State, the official charged with insuring the process of the election, happened to be the chair of the winning candidate's state campaign. Doesn't pass the sniff test, ought to be fixed. Suspicious mechanical and electronic voting and tallying systems are simply inexcusable. In the course of their election day voters likely interact with hundreds of reliable systems for the other aspects of their lives. Why does the system for voting continue to be problematic? Electronic systems with unreviewed code, open communications protocols, and no receipt or paper backup don't pass the sniff test - and neither for that matter does any system produced by a company with partisan ownership. These issues make what should be a transparent process an opaque one. These are winner's issues or loser's issues, they are not Democratic issues or Republican issues. They are American issues and they should not be ignored.

And so, not because I feel as if the results of the election are wrong, but because I do believe them to be tainted I salute those members that raised today's objection and participated genuinely in the debate. I hope that the momentum is not lost and that we together strive for a confident, defensible, and transparent election process even if it means breaking into precincts of 50 and having people raise their hands. Although an even more attractive idea would be to find the kind of candidates that are inspirational enough across the electorate to render this kind of problem moot.