Let freedom ring!
Election 2000 will go down in history as the election that tested our democratic form of government like no other.
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It will be remembered as an election played out as much in the courts as in the voting booth.
As an election, where for a matter of a couple of hours a statewide official, with obvious partisan motives, refused to accept hand counted ballots from one county, opening her office on a Sunday evening rather than waiting for what would be the normal start of a workweek. Of what matter two hours, except to assure that all ballots from all disputed areas were accounted for, not summarily excluded.
We will recall that in this election a third party candidate had a direct impact on the outcome, and the candidate whom most of his supporters would have rejected was the greatest beneficiary.
Let freedom ring!
This will be remembered as an election in which the nation virtually split not only on its choice for president, but also in the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, leaving the very real possibility that at least for the next two years the nation will be at gridlock, unable to take bold action when decisive and courageous decisions are necessary.
This will be remembered as an election for a common federal office, where the form of the ballot, even more than the votes themselves was in question. Why not one standard ballot for all voters across the country so we do have an equal and just election? So we do, as Pat Buchanan suggests, have a snapshot of that particular moment in time, but a snapshot where the film and camera are consistent across the land.
This will be remembered as an election that fed an already volatile stock market with apprehension and puzzlement.
Let freedom ring!
This election will go down in history as one so difficult for historians, political pundits and educators to explain. How do we rationalize that every vote counts when not every vote was counted? There was as much haggling over excluding ballots, from those with cute dimples to military ballots, as there was about including ballots, even those that the machines failed to pick up.
This will be remembered as an election that came down to one state, where ironically the brother of a candidate was governor, where Vice President Al Gore selected only heavily Democratic counties to recount, where deadlines, certifications, procedures, became not only fodder for court battles but seemingly moved the voter farther and farther away from the process.
This will go down in history as the election that most tested the strength of our system, that most exposed its inequities, and brought into contrast the accuracy of machines verses the integrity of individuals.
It will be remembered as an election in which our system survived, unlike so many other countries where similar episodes would have been met with demonstrations and rioting, with outside calls of fraud and corruption and demands for not recounts but re-votes with independent observers.
This will be the election that we remember as testing our system, and in the end demonstrating its strength. We will find reason to celebrate the strength of our system, excusing the imperfections of political parties, the courts, machines and human beings, but holding strong the very principles upon which our system was founded.
Let freedom ring!
