Editorial: Keep on counting, then fix the system

It has been fascinating to watch from afar, and it has provided much fun at America's expense. But the wrangle over the inconclusive presidential election began to pall long ago. Neither of the disputants, Al Gore or George W. Bush, has displayed the statesmanship that Americans might have hoped to see.

Mr Bush has been too anxious to claim victory on the slenderest of margins in Florida, too ready to dismiss votes missed by the machine as being of no account.

Mr Gore has tried harder to appear patient and reasonable, but all the presidential props in the world cannot hide that he is scrabbling for every stray vote in an attempt to reverse the election-night result.

Mr Gore is right to say that every vote should count. It is fundamental to democracy that when a person goes to the trouble of casting a vote, the electoral apparatus should spare no effort to ensure that person's choice is properly recorded and counted. Votes were set aside on election night in Miami-Dade County for checking and have never been tallied, not once. The recounting of so many machine-counted votes was given precedence.

Another dismaying feature of the wrangle is the discovery that America's mechanical systems of voting invalidate so many votes.

Some counties still use one-armed-bandit machines that appear to leave no reliable record by which votes can be checked against voters. The scope they give partisan poll clerks to rig precinct results does not bear thinking about. And another disturbing facet of this post-election contest is the reminder that just about all officials who count in the United States are partisan - openly and unabashedly so.

One of the enduring memories of the saga will be of Katherine Harris, a forthright Republican and Florida's highest electoral official, who tried to halt recounts and, when that failed, to ignore their results. At the same time, the official who approved the "butterfly" ballot card that supposedly caused confusion for Gore voters was herself a Democrat. It is enough to give anyone in New Zealand a new appreciation of our tradition of a non-partisan public service.

There can be no cause for complacency here after the long wait for results on election night last year. But after watching the American experience, advocates of doing away with paper voting in this country have reason to pause.

The Florida recounts have proven, if nothing else, that machines cannot make sensible judgments. Counting machines have rejected ballots for just about anything less than a perfect perforation. In many cases, the voters' intention was obvious to the human eye.

Katherine Harris declared Florida's electoral college votes for Mr Bush this week, and Mr Bush declared himself the President-elect. Mr Gore quickly replied that nothing was decided until every vote had been counted, by which he means every vote in those counties where Democrats think they will pick up more than the Republicans.

Most Florida counties are not being checked, although Mr Gore did make that offer to his rival at the outset. Mr Bush rejected it, and so it can never be said that all votes in that state - let alone all those the machines missed in other states - were counted.

At the end of this week, the US Supreme Court will hear an application from Mr Bush to stop the hand-counts in Florida. It ought to fail. The recounts may be selective but they are counting real votes. These deserve to be tallied, and if the trend so far continues, Mr Bush will win. Even now, although 60 per cent of polled Americans think it is time for Mr Gore to concede, there is no reason not to complete the recounts. The Supreme Court is unlikely to lift the deadline of December 12 for the appointment of Florida's delegation to the Electoral College.

That is the day, still a fortnight away, on which the next President will be known. He will be inaugurated on January 20, probably still under the cloud of the disputed election. He would be well advised to make it his first task to overhaul the creaking machinery of American democracy.

Herald Online feature: America votes

The US Electoral College

Florida Dept. of State Division of Elections

Supreme Court of Florida

Supreme Court of the United States

Democrats and Republicans wage war online