NASHVILLE, Tenn. - On Election Day, one candidate is supposed to win and the other one is supposed to lose. But yesterday, democracy lost.
Yesterday saw an attempt to confuse, mislead and manipulate voters to disfavor Democrats. This is a travesty because the right to vote is such a sacred one. Yesterday it was compromised.
In West Virginia, for instance, voters received calls from a California phone bank paid for by the Bush campaign telling recipients of the call that Sen. Robert C. Byrd did not endorse Vice President Al Gore. This is completely false. Byrd on two separate occasions endorsed Gore, an unprecedented move on his part, since only once before had he endorsed a Democrat.
In Palm Beach, Florida, voters were inadvertently voting for Pat Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore because some of the ballots listed the candidates differently. In New York, where the motor voter program - whereby voters can register through the Department of Motor Vehicles - is in place, information obtained by the DMV wasn't transferred to the poll booths. Registered voters were left turned away in New York.
On election eve, the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee servers were hacked. Jennifer Backus, press secretary for the DNC said, "It just brings shame to the election process. This is about taking the rights of voters." In a personal interview with Doug Hattaway, the Gore-Lieberman national spokesman, he had this to say: "The server has never gone down before. All told, we were trying to get out 30 million e-mails. This is an attempt to keep the Democrats from getting out their message."
Seniors in Iowa were called and told that, unless they registered to vote on Nov. 7, they could not vote. This is not true.
Some seniors were told that Republicans vote today, Democrats vote tomorrow. Some people believed this, so the Gore campaign had to fight against this silly misinformation as opposed to focusing on more important things, such as his message in the final stretch of the campaign.
Reports form early in the morning have it that Republican Corrections Force, a group of off-duty police officers, was patrolling several minority districts. In Philadelphia, Republicans said Gore would add Section 8 housing in local neighborhoods, which is a fabrication. Hattaway said, "We're concerned about [how Republicans are] playing that kind of politics on election day."
For the Democrats, turnout is key. So attempts to keep voters away from the polls is detrimental to the Democrats. It forces them to litigate on Election Day, to correct wrongs, some of whose harms are irreparably realized. These acts of sabotage not only hurt Democrats, but they hurt us all.
In an election this close, these incidents stand to put in question the results. This is unfortunate and it is a disservice to voters - even those who prefer Bush, the beneficiary of these mishaps. As late as 9:43 p.m. EST, in a press conference, reports were issued that indicated that Oregon was being falsely reported as having been called by members of the Bush camp. This misinformation stands to keep some voters from the polls in a state that turned out to be one of the last four to be decided this election.
We deserve legitimacy in the electoral process. Tearing apart an opponent's campaign in an underhanded, unfair and undemocratic way is an insult to the American political process, to the ideal of a free society, and to the dignity of the American people.
The atmosphere is electric. People are cheering in the cool night rain. They are anxious and confident. At press time, nobody is sure of anything. Voter turnout in places such as Maine and Florida is at a record high. The Gore campaign has over 100,000 volunteers. They made millions of house visits and phone calls. But all this is for naught if these examples of good faith politics are negated by the bad-natured competition that this election has seen.
This is one of the closest elections in history. I argued earlier this year that one vote is meaningless. I was wrong. This election proves that there are single votes that matter.
Florida was decided on around 30,000 votes out of about 6 million total. It takes an election like this - an election where the voters speak, where what they say matters, and where turnout is exceptionally high - to restore confidence in a workable democracy.
But all it takes is a mix-up like the one we saw during this election to render all of that meaningless. We must therefore stand against unsavory attack politics and deny future candidates who use them the elected positions they seek.
This election will rise above these events, but it will be stained by them.
(Jeffery Eisenberg is a Cavalier Daily columnist.)
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