Lawyers, lawyers everywhere

By RUPERT CORNWELL - HERALD CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON - When this unbelievable American presidential election of 2000 finally assumes its place in history, what image will best convey its madness?

The security vans under police escort ferrying ballot papers from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties to Florida's capital of Tallahassee, with TV news helicopters in pursuit as if the quarry were O. J. Simpson in his white Bronco?

Or the fearsome Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state and powerdame from Dallas made flesh, whose award of her state's electoral college votes to George W. Bush in retrospect sealed the final outcome?

Or the saga of hanging, dimpled and sundry other chads, which propelled a four-letter word hitherto unrecorded by a dictionary into the global political lexicon?

Or the sad spectacle of the Supreme Court of the United States split on political lines, as it delivered the first ruling in its history that would determine the result of a presidential election?

Or, lastly, the moment at 3.30 am EST on November 8 when the lunacy may truly be said to have begun?

That was when Al Gore called Bush to withdraw the concession of victory he had made a little earlier, on the basis of the second wrong call on Florida by the networks that night. "You're calling to retract your concession?" Bush asked. To which Gore immortally replied, "Well, you don't have to get snippy about it."

So maybe Election 2000 will be remembered as the "snippy" election - though snippiness was an understatement for the ferocity of the exchanges between the two sides and their respective armies of lawyers during the fraught, unbelievable weeks which followed.

Florida was not the only cliffhanger in this election that split America exactly down the middle. There was, for example, Cedar County in Iowa, where 4025 people voted for Bush and 4025 for Gore. There was the entire state of New Mexico which (at the last count) Gore had carried by 368 votes out of over 600,000 cast. And in Wisconsin, Oregon and Iowa the Vice-President's victories were also wafer thin.

In the end time simply ran out for Gore, whatever his inextinguishable conviction that he had won the election. Ultimately, the national yearning for political closure was too strong.

The world's dominant country, so fond of lecturing others on the conduct of their elections, made a farcical mess of its own. Other countries have managed to resolve desperately close elections without a legal brawl. Most other countries would have employed a single, easily understandable method of voting, and managed to count those votes in a reasonable time.

This election proved that a passion for democratic accountability can be too much of a good thing.

The vigour and combativeness of the American system is due in large part to the fact that so many officials, judges and administrators are elected and thus have, or are perceived to have, a political allegiance. Which is all very well - provided you have humble but unimpeachably impartial Westminster-style returning officers as well.

Herald Online feature: Election aftermath

Transcript: The US Supreme Court decision

Transcript: The US Supreme Court oral arguments

Diary of a democracy in trouble

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