New York Times - November 15, 2000
THE SYSTEM
From Partisan Ranks, Electoral Referees By KEVIN SACK
MIAMI, Nov. 14 - As a former official with the Atlanta-based Carter Center, Robert A. Pastor has monitored plenty of elections, mostly in developing countries where democracy is taking its first steps. But Mr. Pastor said he had never seen anything like what unfolded this week right here at home, where both Democratic and Republican partisans in Florida have used their elected positions to influence the counting of presidential ballots.
In most developing countries, Mr. Pastor said, officials quickly conclude that it is vital to separate the counting of votes from any suspicion of partisanship, and they do so by placing a respected jurist or nonpartisan commission over the process.
"The United States is at the most primitive level," said Mr. Pastor, now a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "I mean, it's below Nicaragua and Haiti in the sense that it doesn't have a national election commission and that the composition of the Federal Election Commission is made up solely of members of the parties."
Mr. Pastor said there were often questions in developing countries about whether ostensibly independent election officials were taking sides. "But I can't think of a situation in a developing country like this one, where the senior election officials have come out and declared themselves as partisan," he said.
If it is not quite a dirty little secret, it is at least a rarely considered component of American politics: from local canvassing boards, like those in Palm Beach County, to the Federal Election Commission, people with a partisan stake can play a significant role in determining winners and losers.
Most elections, of course, are not close enough to trigger recounts or raise questions about defective ballots. And when they are, it is hard to know for sure whether officials are acting out of partisanship or an earnest understanding of the law.
But after close contests, charges of partisanship are often hard to avoid, and perception can become reality. Those charges can become magnified in situations like the Florida standoff because a decentralized election system allows states, and even counties, to follow their own laws and regulations.
That has been the case in Florida, where cries of partisanship arose on Monday after Katherine Harris, the secretary of state and the co-chairwoman of Gov. George Bush's presidential campaign in Florida, used her powers to help Mr. Bush. A longtime Republican loyalist, Ms. Harris declared that the state's presidential vote would be certified at 5 p.m. Tuesday, potentially suspending the recounts that could throw the election to Vice President Al Gore.
A state court decision handed down today heightened the Democratic pressure on the Republican official, because Ms. Harris now has the discretion to accept or reject hand-tallied recounts from several counties later this week.
Florida's attorney general, Robert A. Butterworth, an ambitious Democrat and the chairman of Mr. Gore's campaign in Florida, is battling Ms. Harris. As soon as Ms. Harris instructed Palm Beach County officials today to suspend their recount, Mr. Butterworth issued an advisory opinion contrary to hers.
Partisanship has also been perceived in Sunday's 2-to-1 vote by the Palm Beach County canvassing board to conduct a full manual recount. The board's two Democrats voted in favor of a recount while a third member - a judge appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, a Republican and George W. Bush's brother - voted to oppose it.
But one Democrat on that board joined the judge this morning in voting to delay the recount, and a Democrat joined a Republican in Monday's 2-to-1 vote by the Broward County canvassing board against a full manual recount.
In Florida, the canvassing boards, which manage recounts and certify results, are composed of a county judge, the county elections supervisor and the chairman of the county commission. All are elected.
Those officials report results to the secretary of state, who is also elected, as are the secretaries of state in about 40 states. Those positions are often seen as steppingstones to higher office. Paradoxically, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment two years ago that will make the job an appointed post in 2002.
On the national level, the Federal Election Commission, which monitors campaign fund-raising and spending, must be divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the president nominating appointees who are confirmed by the Senate.
Several academic authorities and public officials interviewed today said that the chaos in Florida suggested that election officials, including secretaries of state, should be appointed rather than elected.
"They probably should not be partisan jobs," said Raymond E. Wolfinger, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. But, Mr. Wolfinger added, Americans like the accountability elections provide and may resist giving up control.
Several authorities proposed that a standing federal commission be created to set uniform standards for voting practices and to monitor results. Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana who was a secretary of state, recalled that Indiana created a bipartisan commission to conduct recounts after a tumultuous 1984 election in one Congressional district.
In that race, the Democratic, Frank McCloskey, won the initial count by 72 votes only to lose his lead in a recount certified by a Republican secretary of state. The House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, ultimately overturned that result and sat Mr. McCloskey.
Two years later, Mr. Bayh said, the commission worked well in overseeing recounts in both congressional and legislative races. "You can structure a process that attempts to minimize the amount of partisanship involved," said Mr. Bayh, "but ultimately you have to rely on the integrity and judgment of the people involved. You just can't get around it."
Former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, a former secretary of state, said he saw little need for reform because the courts provide the ultimate recourse. "What would you trust any more than the political system?" Mr. Cuomo asked. "As long as you can get to a court you don't have a problem."
But judges, of course, can also wield bias, as any judge-shopping lawyer can attest. Over the last two days in Palm Beach County, five judges recused themselves from hearing arguments in a lawsuit involving the election because of potential conflicts of interest.