Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: A proper outcome

Friday, Nov. 10, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

The whole world is watching. And properly so.

As I, like perhaps a few million other Americans, sit glued to the television waiting for the answer to the very big question of just who the next president of the United States will be, it is difficult not to wander a little farther away from the intensity of the recount.

It is Thursday afternoon and every half hour or so the numbers change, generally in favor of Vice President Al Gore. This doesn't mean that by the time the recount is over much later today or even Friday that Gov. George Bush won't be declared the winner, but it does mean that the confidence level of voters across the country will continue to fall. And if the news reports prove out, there is good reason to be concerned.

This can't -- nor should -- be an exercise in sour grapes. But what it must be is an exercise in voter confidence in an election process that will result in the proper sitting of the next president of our country. Americans should be able to accept and can handle a popular vote winner in Al Gore and an Electoral College winner in George Bush because that is what our Constitution allows no matter how rare such an outcome might be. The college system has worked well for two centuries and even with this unusual result, there is still no reason to think it won't continue to serve us well for a couple of more centuries.

The danger to this democracy is not in the system that was devised for us and which has worked so far. It is in the confidence level of the voters that when they vote for their candidates, those votes will have value. And therein lies what I see as a major problem. It may be an issue without a resolution, but I do believe it needs attention.

The entire country is watching the last state in the union that will impact the election of the 43rd president. As Florida finishes its recount which, by the time this column goes to print, will probably confirm a very slight lead for Bush, there will remain at least one overriding question of fairness that doesn't seem resolvable except by the courts. Not that the judges won't be asked to intervene -- some lawsuits have already been filed -- but should they have to is the question for this day.

Lawsuits take time. They often drag on and most of the public is left out as the process moves from a very public arena into the more judicial halls of the legal system. And while all that happens, this country and the rest of the world will continue to await word about which candidate will get the job of leading the rest of the world into the next part of the 21st century. The waiting, the watching, the uncertainty of it all. It may be necessary because something extremely important hangs in the balance, but it is not the picture we should want being beamed across the globe.

When some of the dust clears sometime Thursday night or today, there will be at least one big moral question remaining. And that is what to do about the 19,000 or so votes in Palm Beach County that were tossed because they either had double votes -- for Pat Buchanan and Al Gore -- or were counted for Buchanan (who says those votes were not his) when the voters swear they wanted Gore. This election will be decided by barely under or over 1,000 votes out of a total of nearly 6 million ballots in Florida. That's less than one-half of one-half of 1 percent. That's what we call infinitesimal.

Normally a complaint about ballot confusion or even voter fraud is of little significance against the overall vote count. But when the presidency is at stake, what is important is that the entire country believe, at the very least, that regardless of the outcome, people who wanted to vote did and their votes were given the value they deserved. So when the difference between the two candidates is close to 1,000 votes and some 19,000 votes -- votes which the voters say were Al Gore's -- were discarded, there will forever be a stink attached to the outcome.

Gov. George Bush may enter the White House as a result of the recount but even he -- in fact, especially, he -- is entitled to know that his election was proper and without the stench that a mass disenfranchisement could create. It will affect the way he governs and the respect he will or won't get from the country. And beyond everything else, it is important for all of us in this country -- from a domestic perspective and an international one -- to believe the election was won fairly and squarely and to have a president who believes the same.

All of the above leads me to suggest a couple of thoughts. First, nothing can nor should be done until the recount is over and all the votes are in. Until that happens, the rest of this chatter is just that. Second, if and when the vote is final and what we believe is happening is confirmed -- that George Bush wins Florida by a handful of votes and is, therefore, the president-elect -- then the moral dilemma must be addressed.

In that eventuality, the question should be whether democracy is best aided by long, drawn out and uncertain court challenges or whether the state of Florida, with all of its obvious biases intact, will do the right thing and give the voters of that state and Palm Beach County the certainty of knowing that their votes counted. That, by definition, will be difficult because for George Bush's brother Jeb's state to find a way to give 19,000 voters the right to overwhelmingly choose their candidate, presumably Al Gore, may be to hand the White House to the man who would beat his brother. That makes for a very difficult family future.

To ignore what appears to be more and more obvious -- the Gore voters, baffled by a confusing and, perhaps, illegal ballot, punched the button for Buchanan -- is to forever taint at least the moral validity of Bush's presidency and probably end the political viability of his brother Jeb. Either way one Bush may go down to defeat. But that should not be a consideration at this point. The only issue here is whether Americans, who know they voted one way, not be left with the belief that their votes went another way.

It is, at the very least, a moral question and that leads to the most obvious answer.

George Bush ran on a platform that put morality and doing the right thing at the very top of his priority list. I am certain he has no question in his mind what the right thing to do is when faced with so many voters claiming their votes were unfairly and improperly discounted. This is not a matter for controlling legal authority. It doesn't even require knowing what the definition of "right" is.

George Bush knows what's right. The answer is in his Bible. When the votes are counted the world, his country, Florida and his conscience will know the right and moral thing to do.

The only question, then, will be if George Bush is the man his supporters think he is.

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