This election has been the most drawn-out political affair in recent memory. Our October airwaves were inundated with a deafening cacophony of fear-mongering messages that forecasted imminent death and destruction if the other was elected. Regardless of how the electoral chips end up after tomorrow, America needs a breather.
But a respite is not in our future. As ugly as our brand of democracy has been over the last 18 months, I foretell that on Nov. 3, America may very well wake up with a hangover from the democratic process that will last long into November.
Electronic voting machines were prescribed in the wake of the 2000 debacle, but their hasty introduction may have many reminiscing about the days when elections were decided by good old hand counted paper ballots. In Memphis, Tenn., when election officials fired up the new electoral voting machines when early voters began pouring in, the computers summarily crashed. Counties in California which have a significant Hispanic population have bilingual touch screens. When these machines were tested they failed to compute simple arithmetic, the votes seemingly lost in translation.
All campaigns ask for your vote, but now they are trying to control the very act of voting. Accusations of voter suppression and voter fraud have emerged as a campaign strategy for both sides. Leading by example in Ohio, the GOP was preparing to \challenge"" voters on an unfathomable scale; more than 3,600 volunteers were to receive $100 to combat 23,000 cases of alleged voter fraud. The Democrats answered with a lawsuit. At the trial, the case for the GOP took an ominous turn when a sociologist from the University of Cincinnati testified ""that demographic data shows a disproportionate number of challengers would be placed in black precincts."" Statewide, there was a 77 percent chance the GOP challenges would be directed towards blacks and only a 23 percent chance that they would be directed towards a white voter. On Friday, a federal court ruled against the Republicans, effectively killing their legal ability to continue their challenges. The Grand Old Party was humbled by an 84-year-old African American woman, who initially filled the suit because ""it just didn't sit right with me.""
But, of course a list of GOP antics without Florida would be like a third quarter without the House of Pain. Frustrated that Bush's post-hurricane visits to the state didn't color Florida red, a Republican secretary of state appointed by Jeb Bush is once again taking matters into her own hands. She is now commanding county supervisors to invalidate registration forms where applicants have signed a statement declaring they are U.S. citizens but have forgotten to check the box that says U.S. citizen. Not surprisingly, a few Florida Democrats have problems with this and it is now in court, along with a host of other election matters. Looks like Florida 2000: The Sequel will be showing in November in theaters across the country.
We are a two-party system, so voting shenanigans haven't been limited to the GOP. Across the aisle, their counterparts have been equally at task. Chad Station of Defiance, Ohio, was charged with 124 counts of falsifying voter registration forms. He said he completed the forms in exchange for crack cocaine from Georgine Pitts, an employee of the NAACP. Subcontracting voter fraud to a crack addict yielded registrations filled out under the names Mary Poppins, Janet Jackson and Jeffrey Dahmer. A deluge of celebrities have endorsed Kerry, but needless to say Dahmer, the infamous serial killer and cannibal, made Ohio election officials a little suspicious.
Despite the GOP's widely reported efforts to keep voters off the rolls, and the Democrats' willingness to go the extra mile to keep people on, these irregularities probably won't affect the final outcome of the race. The race is coming down to the wire, which means it is going to be decided in court. In a race where 3.9 billion dollars have been spent and politics have been so divisive and corrosive, it is impossible to imagine it ending up any other way. After all, this is America??-why shouldn't our elections be decided by lawyers? After Nov. 2, don't hold your breath.
Jake Herrera is a junior majoring in Middle Eastern studies.
