January, 2001

The 2000 US Presidential Elections

Manar El Shorbagy

Finally, the United States has a 'president-elect.' George W. Bush won the election by 271 votes - one more than the minimum required. And for the first time in more than 100 years, and only the third time in US history, the candidate losing the popular vote will become president.


Throughout the autumn campaign, Bush and his rival, Al Gore, were running head to head; a situation that continued until polling day and led to a 36-day court struggle.
For non-Americans, the post-election litigation process may have been hard to follow; many cases filed, many court names mentioned many laws invoked. The best place to start, however, is with the federal structure of the US political system, as this explains the logic behind the different jurisdictions of both state and federal institutions, including state and federal judiciary.


One should first consider why all this happened to start with. In a structure as old as America itself, what triggered this arsenal of state and federal laws?
An understanding of federalism in America is the necessary background to analyze the post-election crisis, the various jurisdictions of different institutions and the way the US constitution is structured. The goal of the legislators was to device a government strong enough to preserve order, but not so strong as to threaten liberties or state rights. The solution they chose was a government based on the separation of powers and federalism.


Political authority was to be shared by the three branches of the federal government in a manner intended to allow each to check on, and balance the others and thereby prevent any of them from usurping power. The creation of each of these institutions was a product of compromises reached at the Constitutional Convention. Among these compromises was the electoral college system, devised for choosing the president.


Federalism was designed as a system in which both the national and state governments would have certain powers enumerated by the constitution. However, the powers not delegated to the federal government by the constitution 'are reserved to the states, or the people,' as the Tenth Amendment states. The electoral process in America is one area that is basically governed by state laws, except for a few aspects that are subject to federal laws.


As for the litigation process itself and how it ended producing the controversial Supreme Court decision, when the 2000 election results were too close to call, the complexity of both the federal and electoral college systems resulted in bringing the election laws of Florida - as well as the federal laws - to the forefront. Thus, the litigation process was one in which one candidate counted on state courts, while the other resorted to the federal courts; two decisions that were in fact based on political calculations that had to do with the political 'color' of both court systems at the time of the crisis. It is interesting, however, that both candidates seemed keen to act on Alexander Hamilton's advice, using one level of government against the other. In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton told his fellow citizens, that '...if their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.'


But why were the voters evenly divided, or weren't they? The argument here is that the strategies of coalition-building carried out by both candidates were responsible for this result. As Bush and Gore moved to secure the center, both were keen to blur their differences and marginalize the core constituents of their own parties and ignore their issues. While this strategy did not hurt Bush - as the Republican right was keen, after eight years, to kick the Democrats out of the White House, the strategy of marginalizing the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that worked brilliantly for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 proved disastrous for Al Gore. It was even clear that the Gore campaign realized the risk; a week before the election, it started a massive last-minute campaign to mobilize the black vote.


Looking at the results of Florida - let alone other states - tells a great deal. A small portion of Nader's 97,488 votes would have saved the Democrats from the repeated recounts, and the African-American 'under votes' in Palm Beach or Miami-Dade counties would have decided the winner.


Ironically, while both candidates focused completely on the center, and even on a small sector of the center, it was the liberals who decided this election.