THE PEOPLE spoke. The Constitution ignored them. Our bizarre, antiquated, illogical and unfair Electoral College system appears, for the third time in history, to have deprived the American people of their choice for president. But there is an escape from this perversion of democratic rule. Electors designated to vote for Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) should defect and vote for Vice President Al Gore (D) to secure the election of Gore, the popular vote winner, as president.
According to the most recent election counts, Gore will win the popular vote by some 300,000 votes. By all estimates, he will lose the state of Florida once overseas ballots are counted this week. A substantial proportion of those ballots represent the votes of military personnel who are stationed overseas and hence are predicted to heavily favor Bush.
So let's assume nothing dramatic happens during Florida's recount or the recount chaos in Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin or New Mexico. Let's also assume the courts in Florida and elsewhere don't do anything rash and unprecedented and overturn the entire presidential election by calling for a redo. There's still a way for democracy to be served. Bush electors must defect and vote for Gore.
The real election hasn't taken place yet - it happens at noon on Dec. 18, when the electors will convene in their respective state capitols to cast the official ballots for president and vice president. Last Tuesday, no one voted for a presidential or vice presidential candidate; they voted for a slate of electors that will cast the official presidential votes in December.
In many states, those electors are not legally bound in any way to vote for the candidates that won the election in their state. They can vote for the candidates of the opposite party - this is called defecting - or for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, or even for, say, Government Prof. Larry J. Sabato, if they so choose.
In some states, the electors have a civic duty to vote for the state winner, but there are no criminal penalties for not doing so. They possibly could be sued for defecting - and even this is not certain since the statues are somewhat vague and have never been tested in court. But electors wouldn't go to jail for protecting the will of a democratic majority.
On three previous occasions, electors have defected and voted for a different candidate than the one they pledged to vote for. In 1968, an elector from Virginia deserted Richard Nixon to vote for George Wallace. Again in 1972, a Virginia elector deserted Nixon to vote for the Libertarian Party candidate. In 1976, a Republican elector in Washington voted for Ronald Reagan - who wasn't even running - instead of President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate.
These defections have never changed the outcome of an election. We're in uncharted territory in the possibility that faithless electors could change who the next president will be. But that strangeness is common to much of what has gone on in this election. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton won a Senate seat in New York -- a state in which she's never lived. A dead man defeated an incumbent senator in Missouri. Defecting electors are just the icing on the cake.
None of the possible scenarios for the resolution of this election will install an undisputed candidate to the presidency. No matter what happens, this election has been sufficiently corrupted by voting irregularities, procedural errors and the mystical oddities of the Electoral College that neither Bush nor Gore could hope to claim any solid base of legitimacy.
This mess leaves only one principle that can be cleanly served - the rule of the majority. The best remaining option is also the simplest - to elect the candidate that got the most votes. It doesn't matter if Gore won by one vote or 5 million - on Election Day, the greatest number of people voted for him. That's the only clear, uncorrupted measuring stick we have left to go by. Gore should be president.
Electors can ensure his victory. They have the power to keep the system from putting the wrong man in the Oval Office for the next four years. They should do it.
Even if he loses his court battles, Gore should not concede. He should wait for a handful of electors to defect to his side - and for the will of the people to triumph.
(Bryan Maxwell is a Cavalier Daily associate editor.)
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