Why Gore will Win the Hand Recount

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Tue Nov 14 15:47:09 PST 2000


At 09:42 14/11/00 -0500, Gregory Geboski wrote:
>Chris Burford wrote:
>
><<I am not sure is which legal actions really help "the class struggle",
>and which get lost in debates about narrow bourgeois right...>>
>
>Which is less a danger, if it even is a danger, IMO, than ceding the
>question to the ruling class. Valid, fraud- and coercion-free elections
>are a progressive issue. I don't see any contradiction here, or any reason
>why the Left should feel that vote fraud, even between two bourgeois
>parties, is of no interest. Unchecked ruling class lawlessness doesn't
>help the people; when the folks in charge don't feel constrained by even
>the minor legal restrictions imposed on their own actions, watch out.

I definitely agree, even though as Yoshie says we should not put all the eggs in the legal basket.

Yes, the extended debate over narrow individual rights, in this very close election, has greatly illuminated the class nature of the bias running through electoral procedures.

The difficulty is to move beyond narrow mechanical evaluation of equal right to emphasise social right in the context of a complex class society. "Class" actions help and are likely to illuminate class issues in the social and economic sense of the word class.

I suppose one interpretation is to say that if the people of one county want to go to the trouble and expense of counting their vote by hand instead of by machine, they should be allowed to do so, and to report their result the way they think fit, and if other counties do not want to do so, that is their decision.

That places the emphasis on the rights of ordinary populations to influence the elections as they think best. If other counties do not like this, they could decide in future to apportion their electoral college votes on a proportional basis.

Chris Burford

London



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