by Nathan Baca
Staff Writer
With the results of Tuesday’s election still in doubt, many Leopards are wondering who the next President of the United States will be. Both the states of Florida and Oregon have vote counts that are too close to call.
Yesterday’s recount of Florida’s votes has revealed that Bush still leads Gore by 362 votes in 64 counties out of 67. However, the Florida recount has yet to reveal the winner of Florida’s pivotal 25 electoral votes. There are several elections deciding scenarios that remain possible until the 43rd president is inaugurated on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.
Absentee ballots mailed in from overseas are due to arrive in Florida within the next eight days. Most of these ballots are from military personnel station on overseas bases and ships. The remaining portion of the incoming ballots are from American citizens living overseas. The majority of these expatriates currently live in Israel. No reliable figures are available to indicate how many ballots were sent on time or toward which candidate they might favor.
Both the Democratic Party and private citizens might file lawsuits within days to contest various voter irregularities. Approximately 19,000 votes in South Palm Beach County, Florida were disqualified when they were found to have two holes punched out for the presidential ballot choice. Thousands of Florida residents are complaining that the “unique and illegal” layout of the ballot led them to accidentally vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan instead of Democratic candidate Al Gore. An emergency hearing will soon be held in the Florida State Court to decide whether to call for a reelection in that single county. If the margin of popular votes in Florida remains close, a reelection in South Palm Beach could decide the national election.
Other alleged voter irregularities have surfaced in Florida. A locked election box was discovered in a church day care center in Palm Beach but had no ballots inside. Statistical irregularities have been reported in another Florida county where Socialist Worker’s Party candidate James Harris received half of his national vote (9,100 votes).
If George W. Bush is certified as the winner of Florida’s electoral votes, that does not mean he will necessarily receive them when the Electoral College convenes on Dec. 18. The majority of states, including Florida, do not require the electors to vote how their state directs them.
With Gore winning the national popular vote (at press time) with 48,993,390 votes to 48,806,041, some electors might decide to cross party lines and vote for the Democratic candidate.
The new House of Representatives may have no choice but to declare one of the candidates as “acting president” until any foreseeable court cases are decided. If the Florida judges declare the election results invalid, then the acting president may have to cede the White House to the other candidate. This is regarded as the nightmare scenario and could likely result in a “Constitutional crisis.”
While it is not certain whether the next administration will be decided in days, or in the next five weeks, it is more certain that there will be a renewed call for an end to the current Electoral College system.
Campus Comment:
Election 2000: What do you think?
 -- Jennifer Contreras, sophomore journalism major |  -- James Breitling, junior political science major |
 -- Isaura Alarcon, senior sociology major |  -- Frank Tolentino, junior television broadcast major |
 -- Alicia Atkinson, senior psychology major |
