Turning everything over to professionals and creating uniform national standards is not always the best route for a democracy. But given the enmity that now exists across party lines, I think the alternatives are worse, and we've seen why.
Say "national standards," of course, and lots of people shout back about states' rights or local autonomy (though neither principle seemed to bother the conservative Supreme Court justices who wrote the majority opinion four years ago in Bush v. Gore). Akhil Amar, a Yale law professor, says it's time we faced up to the consequences of leaving so much discretion to local officials in national elections. While "there's something appealing" about localism, Amar says, "it works against the strong idea of equality."
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Take the case of "provisional" ballots. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 created these ballots to prevent legitimate voters from being turned away because of an administrative glitch. If a voter proved later to be eligible, the provisional ballot would be counted. If not, it would be discarded. But eligible exactly where? Some states have said they would throw out all provisional ballots not cast in the proper precinct. Is that fair to a voter who was eligible, but whose specific polling place was a few blocks away, perhaps because it was moved between elections? Can you imagine the brawl we'd have if this election were decided by provisional ballots counted differently in different states?
And what if legitimate voters, because of partisan challenges, find themselves forced to cast provisional ballots that might be litigated after the election? Democrats especially are worried that Republicans will try to create huge piles of provisional ballots in inner-city precincts, taking them out of the broader count in order to fan doubts about their legitimacy.
Surely the rules on provisional ballots cry out for clear national standards. And surely the GOP should want to fight, not foster, the suspicion that it is unduly interested in challenging votes in African American districts.
Another matter of national concern is the requirement that first-time voters who registered by mail show identification at the polls. This, too, is a product of the Help America Vote Act, and it would seem a simple barrier against fraud affecting relatively few voters. But as Alec Applebaum reported recently in the New Republic, some election officials are interpreting the provision to mean that all voters must present ID. An estimated 5 percent of Americans have no photo ID, and they tend to be "poorer, less educated and more urban," Applebaum writes. In the absence of explicit national rules, a well-intended but loosely written law might become, in some places, the Help Some Americans Not to Vote Act.
What can be done to prevent an election meltdown? That is really two questions: one for the short term, one for the long run.
For this year, it is impossible to ignore the specter of Bush v. Gore. It has vastly increased Democratic fears that Republicans are all too willing to have the election end up in the Supreme Court, on the theory that Bush will get the same majority as last time. You may call this paranoia. Others might see it as realism. But fear of a repeat is one reason why so many lawyers will get so little sleep in the next three days -- and possibly for weeks to come. Pray that the Supreme Court doesn't get the opportunity to decide the election again.
Massive challenges of voter eligibility will also endanger the legitimacy of this election and call our democracy into question around the world. After the fiasco of 2000, another disputed election could hamper the winner's ability to govern at home and lead abroad. Real fraud, of course, should be publicized and prevented. But concern about fraud can never be an excuse for disenfranchising lawfully registered voters or for encouraging them to walk away from the process.
For the long haul, we must enact uniform federal standards. This is an election for president of the entire nation, not for state treasurer. The system is only as strong as its weakest link. A few states with particularly flawed systems can hold the rest of the country hostage. We need these standards not only for provisional ballots and identification rules, but also for registration, absentee voting (including overseas and military ballots), voting machines and purging voter rolls.
The proliferation of electronic voting systems without verifiable paper trails undermines the public's confidence. Voting equipment, in poor as well as wealthy areas, should minimize the chance for error. As for purges, uniform rules ought to be welcomed by both Republicans, who worry about rolls that carry the names of the ineligible and the dead, and Democrats, who worry that legitimate voters, especially African Americans, are too easily removed from the books.
We also need voting hours that match our lifestyles and work habits. Most of us aren't farmers now, and many farmers hold two jobs. It's silly that most states open the polls primarily during the work day. We either need weekend voting, a practice in some European countries, or we need to keep the polls open for 24 hours.
And then there's the big one: Getting rid of the electoral college and electing the president by popular vote. Honestly, it would solve a lot of problems. Every vote would count equally, whether it's cast in Republican Utah or Democratic Rhode Island. Candidates would have an incentive to campaign outside so-called battleground states. Voters everywhere would have an incentive to cast a ballot. States would have an incentive to increase participation in order to increase their clout.
Yes, if the popular vote got really close, we could face calls to recount the entire country. But how often would that happen? Only one election in the last century -- 1960 -- ended with a popular vote margin of less than 500,000. (Even in 2000, Al Gore tallied 540,000 more votes than George Bush.) If the French can manage to elect their president by popular vote, surely we can figure out how to do it.
No, this won't happen anytime soon. But getting our electoral system right is imperative. We ask our men and women in uniform to die to bring free and fair elections to other countries. Surely we can work harder to make our way of voting a model and not risk turning it into a laughingstock.
Author's e-mail:
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E. J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist, is the author of "Why Americans Hate Politics" (Touchstone) and "Stand Up Fight Back" (Simon & Schuster). He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at Georgetown University.
