We are experiencing a rare occurrence in American government history as we sit awaiting the final tally of the 2000 Presidential Election, one of the closest races in a presidential election in American history. The election indecision has created many controversies, from dubious voting practices and misleading ballots to the debate over using the Electoral College count instead of the popular vote count. In short, with the election results and balloting practices being moved into the courts, we are facing a constitutional crisis.
The election indecision has created a constitutional controversy when it comes to the selection of an American president. According to George C. Edwards III, director of Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University, “There’s no justification for the Electoral College—none. We have invested so much in this nation in the principle of one person; one vote. And for someone—no matter who wins the popular vote—to quite legally take the presidency, entirely contrary to democratic principles, is very hard to justify” (Wildavsky, et al; 1). There are others who argue against this perspective. To many, the rules of presidential selection are rooted in federalist principles and were designed by the founding fathers of this nation to protect small states.
The Constitution was designed to protect small states in the sense that by choosing a president based on state-by-state selection instead of the majority vote, it ensures that presidential candidates will campaign across a wide number of states instead of courting voters only in heavily populated states. In other words, the supporters of the Electoral College argue that we do, indeed, have a democratic system of presidential selection but it is contained within each state not across the nation. Yet, despite either approach being used for presidential selection, the task of accounting for millions of votes in a presidential election is a comple...