Rice panel considers the 2000 election

Rice panel considers the 2000 election

BY JANELLE
DUPONT
Special to the Rice News

The 2000 election
will result in calls for changes in the voting process and
in election news coverage, several Rice professors predicted
at a Nov. 13 panel discussion on campus. They also forecast
a high degree of partisanship during the next four years.

In the final
session of the School of Continuing Studies course “Election
2000 In Perspective” six Rice faculty members, including
former Lt. Gov. William Hobby, fielded questions about the
closest, most controversial presidential election in more
than 100 years. The speakers were Hobby; Robert Stein, dean
of social sciences and the Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of
Political Science; Earl Black, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor
of Political Science; Paul Brace, the Clarence L. Carter
Professor of Political Science; John Alford, associate professor
of political science; and William Martin, the Harry and
Hazel Chavanne Professor of Religion and Public Policy.

Most stopped
short of calling for an end to the electoral college system
of electing the U.S. president.

“Doing away
with the Electoral College would create chaos,” Hobby
said. “If the election had been by popular vote, we
would be recounting every precinct in the country.”

“If there
were no Electoral College, many small groups would have
no clout,” Martin pointed out.

Alford was the
sole voice against the Electoral College, calling it a “disaster.”
He questioned a system that is not understood by a majority
of voters. “If it can’t be explained to a college-educated
person from another country within five minutes, then it
probably isn’t a good system,” Alford told the
class of about 100 gathered in Sewall Hall.

Hobby raised
the possibility that when Congress officially canvasses
the states’ electoral votes in January, Florida’s
votes may be challenged.

“Don’t
think this can’t happen,” he said.

On the subject
of vote counting, Stein said the close Florida results were
so unprecedented that normal safeguards were not adequate.
Alford said, “You can run ballots through a machine
several times and get different results. The technology
is very primitive.”

The national
election was so close, Black contended, because neither
major party dominates certain regions of the country. Both
compete head-to-head throughout the nation.

Several panelists
predicted heightened partisanship in Congress and a difficult
road for the new president. “Whoever wins will have
an amazingly difficult time governing the nation,” Black said.

Stein said the
high numbers of early, absentee and mail-in votes might
partially explain the miscalculations of the news media
on election night.

“There
are no exit polls for early voting,” he pointed out.

Brace reviewed
close presidential elections in the past, noting that the
1876 election, in which Samuel Tilden won the popular vote,
was not decided for Rutherford B. Hayes until three days
before inauguration. “It’s really a battle for
public opinion,” Brace said.

All panelists
agreed that the 2000 election has heightened interest in
politics. A class member asked, “Will it result in
a new faith in the system or more distrust?”

“If the
wheels come off your car on the freeway and you survive,
you don’t say, ‘That’s a real good car,’” Alford said. The bitter election dispute and a polarized
public, he said, will increase support for changes in the
way we elect a president and the way we conduct and report
the voting.

— Janelle
Dupont is assistant dean and director of communications
at the School of Continuing Studies.