Farce in Florida over presidential race

SINGAPORE: The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws. The legislature makes them, the judiciary interprets them and the executive executes them. Where there is disagreement as to what the law means or intends, or where the statutes contradict each other, the Constitution gives the law courts the authority to decide.

That is what has happened in Florida -- ground zero of the confusing 2000 presidential race -- when the state's Supreme Court allowed the disputed hand recounts in three counties to proceed, and ruled that the results of that recount must be included in the state's final tally.

Taking a commonsensical approach, the seven-member court imposed a deadline for the counts to be completed by this weekend, and gave sufficient time to both parties to challenge the result before the state awards its electoral votes on Dec 12.

The court, in effect, affirmed the importance of both a fair count, as Vice-President Al Gore has urged, as well as the urgency of arriving at a quick decision, as Governor George Bush has urged. A fairer judgment is difficult to conceive.

It is all the more unseemly, therefore, that the Bush camp has reacted by declaring open war on the court. The governor is not obliged, of course, to agree with the court, or refrain from trying to reverse its decision by appealing to the federal Supreme Court, as he has every right to do.

What he and his surrogates should not be doing is cocking a snook at the court, and threatening to get the Republican- controlled Florida legislature to award unilaterally the state's electoral votes to Bush.

An obscure provision in the US code does allow a state's legislature to appoint electors, but only if the election fails to produce a clear decision by the date "prescribed by law" -- that is, on Dec. 12, 20 days from today.

Any attempt to involve the legislature in reversing a lawfully adjudicated vote will create a constitutional crisis of such enormous proportions that President Bill Clinton's impeachment two years ago would seem minor.

To all intents and purposes, the 2000 presidential race is a tie. According to an unofficial count, Gore has a lead of 323,000 in the popular vote, and seems to have gained 267 votes in the Electoral College, three short of a majority, compared to Bush's 246.

Since neither can get to the White House without taking Florida, both have pulled out all the stops to snare the state's 25 electoral votes. With less than 1,000 votes separating the two, the war has become intense.

By fair and foul means, through the law courts and on the ground, the candidates are busy hustling for a few tens of votes at the precinct level as though they were a couple of municipal politicians rather than prospective statesmen. To its credit, the American public has reacted calmly, so there is little sense of crisis in the air.

But this can change if the fight becomes more bitter or protracted. Before that point is reached, there has to be a settlement. The Florida Supreme Court's decision, to set a deadline for the vote count to be completed, provides justly a means for achieving that settlement. If, by Sunday, Gore is still behind, he must concede and refrain from further court challenges.

If Bush loses his lead, he may, if he so chooses, challenge the legality of the manual counts in the courts, but he should abide by whatever decision they make.

Whoever is finally determined the winner, the first test of the next President is unfolding right now and, so far, both of them seem like abject failures. Neither should compound the impression by behaving childishly.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network