BY MALIK MIAH
SAN FRANCISCO — Who won the November 7 US presidential election? Democrat Al Gore or Republican George W. Bush? As of this writing, it's still too close to call. Based on the peculiar electoral college system, if Bush wins the state of Florida, he will likely be the next president of the only superpower in the world even though it appears he lost the popular vote.
The total vote was about 101 million (some votes are still to be counted), with 51% of eligible voters voting. Gore and Bush each received about 50 million votes each. Gore won the national popular vote by 200,000 votes. However, because he may not have won a majority of votes in a single state — Florida — he might not win the election.
Not since 1888 has a candidate who won the popular vote not been elected president.
The final Florida results won't be in until all overseas absentee ballots are counted. They aren't required to be in until November 17. Recounts and legal skirmishes are taking place between the two parties to determine the winner.
US is a federal republic, not a democracy
The United States is not a true democracy based on one-person, one-vote. It is a federal republic where the states have significant autonomy. The states, for example, each receive two Senate seats in the Congress. That means states like New Mexico with 1.7 million people get the same number of Senate seats as California with 37 million people. Only the House of Representatives is based on actual population size. So New Mexico has three House seats, and California has 52.
This contradiction in the US Constitution is not widely understood in the population. But the Gore-Bush struggle for president has shaken the American people about the electoral system and the legitimacy of the next president whoever wins.
In 1888 (and the two times when it happened before) only white men with property were allowed to vote under the US Constitution. Women didn't win the vote until 1920 and most African-Americans in the southern states were denied the vote under discriminatory state laws until the 1960s.
In modern times, it's never happened. In fact, most Americans were surprised to learned that their vote only elected electors in their state who under the constitution meet on December 18. The electors will vote for the next president.
The popular vote determines which party electors are selected by each state. The state elections are based on the principle of the winner takes all the electors. So a candidate needs only to receive one more vote than the loser.
Except in two states, all the electors go to the winner. For example, in California, there are 54 electors. Gore received more than 50% of the vote so he got all 54 electors.
But the constitution does not mandate that electors are required to vote a certain way. Although it rarely happens, electors have switched votes.
The problem of legitimacy is tied to the illusion that the popular vote is decisive nationally when it is only decisive within a state. This is why it is possible to win the national popular vote and lose the electoral college. The reason it rarely happens — and hasn't in over 100 years — is because generally that one of the two candidates wins both the popular and electoral college votes.
Moreover, negligence and some fraud are typical of elections in the United States. Again, generally, they do not to effect the final result. One reason for this is the "Founding Fathers" (the 55 delegates who attended the constitutional convention held in Philadelphia in 1787) developed a two-party system which basically makes it impossible for third parties to win electoral college votes. In 1992, for example, multimillionaire Ross Perot's Reform Party won 19% of the national vote but received no electors since he could not gain a plurality in any state.
If there was a genuine mass third party, no party would likely win a majority of the 538 electoral college votes. This would throw the election to the Congress and courts — something the ruling elite is against, which is why the two-party system is not likely to be broken open short of a political revolution.
In the context of a unique set of circumstances where Bush and Gore have ended up with almost identical popular and electoral votes, fraud or perceived fraud in one state can throw the whole system into crisis. Neither major party, since both represent big business interests, wants instability or people to begin a basic questioning of the undemocratic two-party setup.
The situation is compounded in this election since the state that will decide the next president is Florida, whose governor is the Texas governor's younger brother, Jeb Bush. Many wonder aloud, "Is it because of family ties?" Some Democrats began referring to the state as a "Banana Republic" during the Elian Gonzalez affair.
Florida is also home to a large number of military personnel based abroad who tend to vote Republican. And it is the home of many retired Jewish Americans including many who live in Israel. Because Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman is the first Jew nominated for vice-president, it is assumed that most of the Jewish votes will go to Gore.
It's possible that votes by soldiers abroad or Jews living in Israel could be decisive in electing the next president.
The Nader factor
While there is much talk about the contradictions of the electoral system and what to do about it, the most significant political development in the election was the impact of the Green Party presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. Nader received nearly 3% of the national vote (2.7 million votes). Despite claims that Nader appealed to mainly white liberals and students, he also received about 4% of the Asian, 2% of the Latino and 1% of the African-American vote.
Before the election, Nader's campaign was able to attract young people and others by holding large rallies across the country. This led the major newspapers, including the New York Times, to blast his candidacy as an act of "recklessness". The Times and liberal backers of Gore called Nader an "egomaniac" and worse. With the possibility that Gore will lose, a typical comment from the Gore camp were threats against Nader and the Greens in general.
New York Newsday columnist Marie Cocco summarised best the shrill mania of this crowd. "The Republicans had it right", she wrote. "The election of the first president of the 21st century turns on the dysfunctional self-absorption of an egomaniac.
"They just got the guy's name wrong. The most destructive ego on the national political scene does not belong to a Clinton. It belongs to Ralph Nader."
Behind this hysteria was the closeness of the vote. In several other states the margin of defeat for Gore (if it holds) will be less than the votes cast for Nader.
In Florida, Gore was losing by a few hundred votes. Nader received approximately 97,000 votes. Therefore, by pro-Gore logic, Gore lost the presidency — if he does — due to votes for Nader. (Never mind Gore couldn't even carry his home state of Tennessee!)
The fact that many, if not most, Nader voters were first-time voters who would not have voted if he was not on the ballot, or they strongly agreed with his basic principle that corporate power denies citizens democratic control of the government, is meaningless to liberals who believe the US two-party system is sacrosanct and the best in the world.
For them politics means nothing more than supporting the lesser of two evils. "It's about consequences, not conscience", was their common argument.
Nader's reply before and after the vote was the same: "How can you spoil a system that's spoiled to the core?"
Most supporters of Nader refused to buckle. Typical responses were seen in letter pages around the country which said simply, "I voted my conscience". On the Nader2000 Web site one message read: "Stand stall and proud, fellow Nader supporters." It was signed, "Go look elsewhere for scapegoats".
The Nader campaign, along with the state and local Green party efforts, made gains. At least 27 Green candidates won in local and state elections in eight states. Nader had always said the main purpose of his campaign was to strengthen the citizen groups and movements in the country. While not getting the 5% of the national vote needed for public financing for the next presidential campaign, getting nearly three million votes was very significant.
Moreover, Nader's message against "corporate-controlled government" received more attention than ever before. It lays the basis for ongoing education on that issue and the many other issues he raised from national health care to abolishment of the electoral college.
The Nader campaign resulted in a 240,000 mailing support list and raised over $7 million by contributions of $100 or less. And his support went beyond the young college students. Many frustrated liberal Democrats and anti-big government moderate Republicans voted for Nader. The environmental icon, David Browner, who died days before the vote, proudly cast his absentee ballot for Nader.
In other words, the hard core, dedicated environmentalists, many supporters of civil rights and women's rights and civil liberties, didn't bend to the pressure of the Gore liberals. This is significant for ongoing organising around many democratic issues. Nader's 37-year record of building consumer advocacy groups backs up his statement that this is just the beginning to build a viable mass third party.
It's noteworthy that many socialists understood the dynamic of Nader's campaign and actively joined it. My organisation, Solidarity, was an active participant in the campaign especially in reaching out to student and labour activists for Nader. The future of rebuilding a mass people's movement for fundamental social change in society is based on recognising this promising development and using the political debates around it to advance a pro-environment, anti-racist, pro-women rights and socialist agenda.
Moreover, the hard stance against Nader by the top officials of most labour unions and the officialdom of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) exposed to many workers why labour needs its own independent party.
Nader's campaign helped to clarify why there is a need for a third party based on a principled campaign against government and the corporate powers. His campaign was also a reflection of and a continuation of the movement against globalisation begun with the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and other elite institutions of world imperialism.
What next?
Nader states that his efforts to build a truly independent third party will continue. Other Green Party leaders pledge to do the same.
The debate over the legitimacy of the new president and the electoral college is useful for all democratic and socialist-minded activists to expose to the American people and the world how US democracy really works and how it isn't the most democratic or best system ever created.
The undemocratic electoral college system provides ample opportunity to explain how the rulers keep power from the people. I've been in more discussions at my workplace on the constitution, the American revolution and other aspects of US history than ever before. This has been true everywhere. Some bosses are complaining about the slowdown in work as workers debate the wisdom of the "Founding Fathers".
The authors of the constitution, of course, knew exactly what they were doing: prevent the farmers from taking over the country from the new capitalist elite. They opposed direct presidential elections based on one person, one vote, because they didn't trust the common person even though it was white male landowners who had the vote.
After the victory of the American revolution in the 1780s, the new ruling class was deeply divided between slave-owning states in the south and the northern states. The great compromise represented by the constitution was to give disproportionate power to the less populated southern states by granting them a system that allowed each slave to be counted as three-fifths of a vote for members of the House of Representatives and establishing a Senate in which each state received two representatives no matter what was the size of its population.
Because the system worked so well it was never amended after the civil war between the states in the 1860s finally consolidated the power of the industrial capitalists within the United States. The system, realistically, allowed only two major parties to function. They simply trade places periodically while offering a nuance of difference over foreign and domestic policy issues. That's why there haven't been any calls from within the elite to amend the constitution and go for a direct popular vote for the presidency.
For socialists and other radical democrats, opportunities have increased because of the surreal ending of this presidential campaign and the success of Nader's efforts.