A Far More Important Point About Tomorrow

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Stephen D. Poe" <sdpoe () acm org>
Date: November 1, 2004 4:59:01 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: A Far More Important Point About Tomorrow
Reply-To: sdpoe () acm org

Dave -

Friedman raises a key point. Up until 2000, for the most part, we 
trusted our elections, warts and all. What happens if partisan politics 
(by both parties) wins out and destroys that trust?

Stephen

The Elections: Playing With Fire
November 01, 2004  1636 GMT

By George Friedman

We are now hours away from the 2004 presidential election in the United
States. Everybody has had his say, including Osama bin Laden. It is now 
up to
one of the strangest -- and most successful -- electoral systems yet 
devised,
a system made even stranger by the fact that there is no longer really 
any
such thing as Election Day. A large number of voters will have already 
voted,
which makes it a statistical certainty that some will be dead by 
Election
Day. We have institutionalized the graveyard vote.

At this point, if we are to believe the polls, the most likely outcome 
is
that U.S. President George W. Bush will win a narrow victory. As we go 
into
Election Day, the spread of the polls is from dead even to Bush being 
ahead
by 5 percentage points. There were few, if any, polls over the weekend
showing that Kerry is in the lead. In many of them, the spread is 
within the
margin of error. However, when multiple polls confirm the same finding, 
the
significance of the margin of error declines. Going into the weekend, 
Bush
was ahead.

This should not be overstated. If he is ahead, it is only by a few 
percentage
points. By past practice, the challenger normally picks up support over 
the
weekend before the elections because undecided voters tend to support 
the
challenger. The problem this time is not only that there are so few 
undecided
voters, but that anyone who is still undecided after this campaign is 
either
utterly indifferent, locked in a cave or deeply troubled. That means the
normal weekend flop might happen, but given the size and makeup of the
undecided vote, it is not clear that precedent applies. The last-minute 
surge
will be small, and might easily split between Bush and Kerry or go to 
Kerry.

Obviously, winning the popular vote doesn't guarantee victory in the
Electoral College. Therefore, it is possible Bush will win the popular 
vote,
but lose the election. Large majorities in the states in which he has 
strong
support -- the mountain states and the south -- make this a possible 
outcome.
It is not a likely outcome, simply because the swing states appear to be
tracking the national polls, and because several of the swing states, 
such as
Florida and New Mexico, appear to be moving toward Bush.

It is possible to imagine Bush winning by as much as 5 points and 
winning a
surprisingly large number of states. It is possible to imagine Kerry 
winning
by 1 to 3 percentage points and solidly winning the election. It is also
possible to imagine Bush winning by 1 to 2 points and losing the 
election --
or very narrowly winning in the Electoral College. What is difficult to
imagine is the outcome everyone dreads -- a repeat of 2000.

It is necessary to understand the extent to which 2000 was a freak. In 
order
to repeat 2000, two things must happen: First, the electoral vote must 
be a
virtual tie, in the sense that except for one state (or more, but that 
makes
the outcome even more improbable), all states are committed, without 
giving
either candidate a majority. Second, the votes in that state (or 
multiple
states) must come in at a virtual tie as well. That is what happened in
Florida in 2000 when the vote was tied.

On the surface, when the first vote was counted, Bush had 535 votes 
more than
Al Gore. In fact, they had exactly the same number of votes. Any system 
that
must count several million of anything has a built-in error rate. 
Anyone who
has done inventory in a warehouse knows that no matter how hard you 
try, you
will never get a perfectly accurate count. Assume, for the moment, that 
with
your best efforts, you could count a million votes with 99.9 percent 
accuracy
-- an incredibly dubious proposition, since nothing is that accurate.
Nevertheless, the Florida election came in as smaller than even this
preposterously high accuracy rate could accommodate. Count and recount 
the
vote all you want, and as many times as you would like, the outcome 
would
still be flawed. Human beings don't count millions of items at the 
level of
accuracy needed to reach a clear conclusion in Florida.

Florida was a dead tie on top of a dead tie in the Electoral College. An
absolute tie might have triggered some sort of obscure law, but a 
virtual tie
was simply something the law couldn't handle. It appeared that Bush won 
or --
if different rules were used or a recount held -- that Gore won. The 
fact was
you could recount as often as you wanted and get almost any outcome you
liked. The built-in error rate could take you anywhere.

In Florida, of course, the built-in error rate became the foundation 
for a
challenge to Bush's victory. There was no way to deal with the reality 
of the
matter -- it was a tie that would decide the election, so it was a 
do-over.
Each side had to craft a legal argument demonstrating that its method of
interpreting the tie was the only legal way to do it. The Republicans 
were
outraged when the Democrat-dominated Florida Supreme Court ruled in 
favor of
a plan that would let the Democrats win. The Democrats praised the rule 
of
law. All this reversed when the Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court 
voted
5-4 in favor of what the Republicans wanted and the Democrats were 
disgusted
with the utter partisanship of it -- forgetting that the four Democrats 
on
the Supreme Court voted in as much of a partisan fashion as the 
Republicans.

What happened in 2000 was a natural and unplanned accident. If another 
state
had gone Republican or Democrat, then Florida would have been 
irrelevant. You
needed two absolute ties to make this happen. The probability of a tie 
in the
Electoral College and a tie in the remaining state -- a difference so 
small
that it can't be counted -- is the least likely scenario.

The problem is this: While Florida was a case where no one could count 
the
vote, a barrier has been broken in which challenging the outcome of the
election no longer requires an outcome below statistical measurement. 
Both
parties have readied challenges to the legitimacy of the election that 
would
seem to apply regardless of the count. The Republicans are challenging 
newly
registered voters and the Democrats are going to challenge the 
Republican
challenges. There are other issues on the table as well. For example, 
the
Democrats have made it clear they don't trust the new electronic voting
machines.

In other words, the election could wind up in a legal tangle if it is 
no more
than moderately close, but the difference is above the statistical 
screen. A
cultural shift appears to have taken place since 2000 in which the very
legitimacy of the electoral system has been cast into doubt. There have
certainly been episodes of fraud in many elections in the United 
States. The
miracle is not that there have been frauds, but that there have been so 
few
and that the republic has survived them.

If we are to believe reports that have become ubiquitous, John F. 
Kennedy
stole the 1960 election. More precisely, Chicago's mayor and leader of 
the
Cook County Democratic Party -- at least by urban legend -- at the 
behest of
Chicago Mafia chief Sam Giancana waited until it became clear how many 
votes
were needed to give Illinois to Kennedy, and then whipped them up -- no
electronic voting machines needed. If the story is true, it would not 
have
been the first or last time an election was stolen in the United States.

Richard Nixon lost that election. Again, according to legend, he was
approached by Republican leaders and told that he should challenge the
election. Nixon -- and if this is true, then it was certainly his finest
moment -- refused to challenge on the basis that even if he won, the
presidency would have been rendered worthless.

We are now reduced to this question: Where have all the Dick Nixons 
gone? If
we are to believe what each party is saying, there are no longer any 
limits
to which either party would go to challenge the election legally. That 
about
puts the situation into context: Nixon had a finer ethical sense than 
the
leadership of either party today. He let Kennedy steal the election 
rather
than sully the presidency. The current crop would try to find any means 
to
win the election, regardless of consequences.

We do not think that the factual basis of the 2000 challenge is likely 
to
repeat itself. We do believe it is possible for a pseudo-factual basis 
to be
generated. If that were to happen, it would be the most geopolitically
significant event we could imagine -- far more important than whether 
Bush or
Kerry wins. Either one winning would be better -- regardless of who one 
votes
for -- than a situation in which the United States is paralyzed for 
weeks or
months by legal maneuvering and the new president takes office with a 
sense
of scandal and illegitimacy hanging over him.

It was relatively placid in 2000 as years go, but 2004 finds the United
States engaged in global warfare. Were the United States convulsed in a
constitutional crisis lasting three months, the consequences would be
enormous, both in the perception of the United States and the practical
ability of Bush -- who would still be president -- to govern. If nothing
else, the intellectual bandwidth of the political system would be 
absorbed in
the crisis rather than the war, and the war cannot be allowed to drift 
for
four years.

One would expect the political leadership to be unified on one thing:
avoiding this. Even if the double miracle of 2000 were to repeat, it 
could be
expected that the two parties would deliberately avoid a 2000-style
confrontation because there is a war on. We would expect them to 
emulate the
spirit of Nixon -- not that high a hurdle, one would think. But the 
fact is
that they are prepared to replicate 2000 regardless of whether the facts
repeat themselves -- and indifferent to the war.

A modest proposal presents itself: In the event that the election is
seriously contested, both Bush and Kerry should agree to withdraw their 
names
from candidacy. They should then meet and jointly select a third person 
that
they can both agree would be a suitable president, and ask their 
electors to
vote for him.

We do not know either of these men and don't know whether their 
ambitions are
such that they could tolerate this solution. Nor do we know if they 
could
agree on a suitable substitute who could straddle the difference. 
Frankly, we
think they are likely to fight for the last morsel of power. Possibly, a
political movement could generate itself in this country to force a
compromise.

What is clear is this: A repeat of 2000 is unlikely unless the two 
parties
create one. They seem committed to that course. If they do, they will be
playing with fire during war. From an objective standpoint, a victory by
either candidate too substantial to be challenged by the lawyers is far
preferable to what seems to be coming -- a close election and the 
country
torn apart.

(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com



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