Experts speak out on the race that won't die

Pundits can gesture from news desks and make comparisons to 1960 Kennedy-Nixon (Legendarily close! Uncertain vote counts!). Others can bring up 19th century examples of conflicts between the popular and Electoral College vote. But this has been a week like no other in American politics. As democracy is brought to its knees on the eyesight of Palm Beach citizens, the Herald turns to professors, from Yale as well as from other colleges across the nation and the world, to find out what we should make of it.

Rod Lyon, professor of Government, University of Queens-land, Australia: Frankly, from here in Australia your election looks amazing. Not all about it is bad. I think it was sensible to keep the dead man on the ballot, and then to arrange for a transition to the state governor's nominee: easily the most direct solution.

As for Florida—what can I say? That's what I call a tight election! If Bush is elected, he will be carrying two heavy burdens into office: a loss in overall popular vote, and concern over Florida's outcome. That will make it harder to rebuild bipartisanship, and may even devalue his authority as the key Western leader.

John Lapinski, Political science Professor, professional pollster, and NBC political analyst, Yale College: We were sure that it would be a difference of under 275,000 votes in Florida, so we did know there would be a recount. But there was pressure on the producers to call, so they did. Everyone looked stressed. I kept thinking Tim Russert was going to have an aneurysm.

The NBC producers were overconfident because so few polling mistakes have been made in the past. They decided to call the race before getting any actual vote data. Some people are going to end up losing their jobs for that.

John Koppell, Assistant Professor of Politics, Policy, and Organization, Yale School of Management: It's obviously unusual for a presidential election to hinge on the design of ballots in a single county. However, the arrangement of ballots can always affect the performance of candidates. In an ideal world, ballots would be neutral, but that's actually more difficult to achieve than one might think.

But I think both Gore and Bush acted appropriately. It would be unrealistic to expect either candidate to accept any outcome before the votes are carefully recounted and disputes settled.

Rogers Smith, Alfred Cowles professor of Government and Political Science Rogers Smith, Yale College: Voting irregularities and some shady doings in some locations are routine in American elections. In this case it is necessary to make sure that no serious vote fraud occurred, but barring that, it isn't worth it to hold up the election over minor irregularities.

I do think this election will spark reconsideration of the Electoral College, and that it certainly should. The system was structured as a compromise to enhance the power of small states and slave states. There is no compelling democratic justification for it today.

David Mayhew, Sterling professor of Political Science, Yale College: As long as the USA was not a universal suffrage country—that is, not until 1965, it was politically difficult to get rid of the electoral college without refighting the Civil War. The white South wouldn't have permitted it. But after the 2000 election, support may rise for abolishing it. Possibly the small-state senators would dig in to block any amendment, but they might not prevail if reform sentiment is strong enough.

I hope this election is over pretty soon. I hope we don't have weeks or months of indecision, challenges, court cases. One side or the other should throw in the towel.

Alan Natapoff, professor, physics research scientist, creator of a mathematical defense of the Electoral College system, Masschusetts Institute of Technology: The Electoral College System is like the World Series. The team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games. Nobody argues that it's unfair.

But, the system should be changed. Electors should be eliminated. Each state should command a number of electoral votes equal to the total number of votes its voters casts plus the actual vote equivalent of the 2 Senatorial votes, i.e. 2/436 X 100,000,000 = 460,000, if 100 million popular votes are cast nationally. For example, California cast 9.826,617 votes in 2000 so its winner would receive 9,8216,617 + 460,000. In some other year, California would receive its actual total vote + the same fraction, 2/436 of the popular vote in that year. All those votes would go to the winner of the state's popular vote.

R. Ajulu, professor of International Political Economy and African Government, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa: I find the accusation of voter irregularities in Florida rather interesting. For the first time, the aftermath of an American election bears striking parallels with electoral disputation in Africa, and a number of Third World countries. At last we can now say that vote "rigging" is not unique to Africa. Perhaps they should have invited a number of international election observers.

Louise Vincent, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Studies, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa: I don't have a comment except to say that I don't think there are any South Africans beyond two or three political scientists who actually understand what has happened in the election-we can't understand the difference between the popular vote and the electoral college thing. Could you offer a brief explanation?

Kushal Dave, David Gest, Andrew Heller, and Aaron Lichtig contributed to this article.

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