CAN A COIN-TOSS ELECTION
TRIGGER A CONSTITUTIONAL
EARTHQUAKE?
STEPHEN HOLMES
Electoral politics looks considerably more impressive when observed from a filmy distance than when examined under a microscope. American democracy's inherent disorders and defects, it turns out, extend beyond abysmally low turnout, candidates manufactured by advertising agencies, and campaign financing shenanigans. The 2000 presidential election, in particular, revealed that a virtual draw in a winner-take-all contest assigns ultimate decision‐ making power not only to untypical swing voters (an outcome that is undemocratic enough) but also to unavoidable inaccuracies in the tabulation of ballots. Even if the hand recounts in Florida had been conducted more scrupulously and thoroughly than they were, the difference in votes between the two candidates would have remained statistically meaningless, that is to say, would have been less than the margin of error. Where the electorate is evenly divided, the
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