Election dilemma from a process perspective

[Tnolan@apiweb.org]

(Sent to the Washington Post)

November 12, 2000

Editor:

A dangerous mixture of partisan politics and a lack of knowledge of processes and the enumeration of their 
outcomes fuel the attempts to resolve the presidential election. The candidates and the election officials are 
involved in a quixotic search for something that exists only in concept: a number that is the "true" quantification 
of the intentions of the voters on Election Day. To choose a president we measure the intentions of the population
by designing and operating an election process. The outcome of this process is a vote count. The final count 
depends on many factors including: the intentions of the population with respect to their choice for president,
 the decision to vote, the personal circumstances of the registered voters on Election Day, the weather, the 
location of the polling place, the design of the ballot, and the method of completing and counting the ballots. 
Change any subset of these and you change the result.  

Specifying the election process in advance and abiding by the results, maintains trust in our political system.
 Ironically as more changes are made "to get it right this time" the more potential there is for having the final 
result differ from the one on Election Day and thus weakening trust in the system. All processes have defects 
associated with them. Assuming we can correct the defects in the election process with ad hoc changes in a 
politically charged environment is folly and will only make matters worse.

The delay in the overseas absentee ballots provides a brief window of time for a rational solution: 
The electoral officials in Florida describe the process of counting the ballots and follow it rigorously. 
The details of the process are made known to the American people. Before the count is completed,
 the candidates announce an agreement to abide by the results of the count and to cease calling for changes
 to the original process at a joint press conference The candidates recommend that the election process be 
studied and redesigned to improve its performance in the future, especially in close elections.

The campaign was filled with promises of reaching across party lines to cooperate for the good of the country.
 It is time to deliver on those promises.

Thomas W. Nolan, Ph.D.







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