Last night, 1988 Democratic presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis addressed a crowd of about 500 students, faculty and community members in the Chemistry Auditorium regarding the state of the presidential election system.
Dukakis's speech was part of the annual National Symposium Series sponsored by the University Center for Governmental Studies. The 2001 series focused on the presidential selection process.
Dukakis spoke about his take on the 2000 presidential election.
The "reality is Gore won Florida by 25,000 to 30,000 votes," he said.
Dukakis said he thought recounts were a necessary part of the electoral process because most polling methods are prone to malfunction.
"We will always need recounts, no matter what the system is," he said.
The Florida controversy occurred because of a lack of state supervision, fraud and illegal ballots, Dukakis said.
He also said he was unimpressed with the Supreme Court decision.
The opinion was "the biggest piece of judicial crap I have ever read in my life," Dukakis said.
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He said he thought the only standard that should be applied is the standard of intent.
The standard of intent applies to improperly marked ballots. Dukakis said that if a voter checked the box in a space next to the name of the candidate on the ballot then the voter had indicated intent.
Dukakis also said the Supreme Court made an especially "disappointing decision" because it violated the Tenth Amendment, which should have given Florida courts the power to decide the issue rather than the United States courts.
"I think the Court has been badly hurt by this," he said. It will "take a long time to regain credibility."
Also Dukakis favored abolishing the Electoral College. He said its creation "had nothing to do with the big states and small states."
Instead, the creation represented "the distrust of the common man," Dukakis said. When the Electoral College was created, poor males, minorities and women were not allowed to vote.
Dukakis said the Electoral College should change because now "most of us think we're as good as the next guy," he said.
According to Dukakis, the electoral system needs to be reformed, but the "most serious ailment affecting the American political system" is that "major parties in this country have almost abandoned grassroots campaigning."
While Dukakis acknowledged that we still have problems on many issues, "we've come a long way cause good people have got into politics and worked."
Many University students attended the Center's last event in the 2001 symposium series.
"I really enjoyed having the opportunity to see a famous politician who works on the national arena," second-year College student Suzanne Inge said.
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