15 November 2018
The return of the hanging chads
US Midterms
by J.R.Thomas
Yes folks, they are back. You thought they had faded into oblivion after that historic tussle between Gore and GW, but you can’t really keep a good thing down. At least in Florida.
The mid term elections may have been last Tuesday – nine days ago as you read this – but Florida is recounting yet again. On the night it looked like a narrow victory for former governor Rick Scott to move over to state senator but as the margin was less than 0.5% state electoral law mandated a recount. The new governor looked to be Republican Ron DeSantis overcoming Democrat Andrew Gillum, who conceded to Mr DeSantis, but on learning the winning margin was 0.41% Mr Gillum later unconceded and a recount has been held in that contest also. So far the recounts confirm the Republican victories, but both sides are alleging naughty behaviour by the other and calling for investigations.
But the real hanging chad* this time is not those dangling bits of card which mess up the voting machines, but the armed service votes. Armed service personnel not resident at home must vote by post by the closing time of the poll, but the votes then have 10 days to reach the counting officer. (This is not due to any doubts about the efficiency of the US postal service, but to allow overseas votes to arrive.) With such narrow margins it is theoretically possible that those late votes could change the result.
The President is not impressed by this and has called for the investigations to be closed and results declared, and after the services vote cut off time today (if you are reading this on publication day) it seems likely, given the lack of any sightings of Russians hanging around the Sarasota polling booths, that it will be.
Whatever the eventual results in Florida they will not change anything nationally. The elections were a major victory for the opinion polls, who got it pretty much spot on. The Democrats won the House of Representatives with a very comfortable working majority of around twenty nine seats (ten results yet to be finalised) and the Republicans won the Senate with a majority of at least two (two results awaited including Florida). The Republicans narrowly and surprisingly lost Arizona to a strong Democrat of Hispanic origin – showing the ever increasing strength and loyalty of Hispanic legacy voters. To balance that Ted Cruz won in Texas after a major wobble followed by a complete adjustment of Cruz’s campaigning style to involve humour and humility. Humour and humilty; whatever is happening in politics?
What is a big surprise, though maybe it should not be, is the enormous increase invoter turnout. Around 113 million voters turned out, nearly 50% of those eligible to vote, a record for a non- presidential contest. Post vote questions seem to indicate that the urge to mark the paper was particularly high amongst Democrats whose principle concern was health care reforms and dislike of the President. Among Republicans, tax and immigration seemed to be key factors, and across the board and really for the first time on such a scale, cross party concern was expressed about gun control law. Lack of, to be clear. That may lead to some reforms early in this session; not least because the lobby against tighter gun control rules on ownership has probably lost a lot of influence with the retirement of a number of traditional supporters in both houses, and the rise of younger and more female congressmen and senators.
For Mr Trump the results are not a disaster but certainly will create problems in passing new legislation and getting funding for that Wall. Much has been said to the effect that it exposes him to the danger of impeachment, but there has been some riding back by the Democrat leadership on that; not least because senior politicos realise that the use of impeachment as a political weapon could badly backfire on a future Democrat president. The most likely Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has said that she does not support any commencement of impeachment proceedings unless much better and newer evidence of bad behaviour by the President emerges. However, Ms Pelosi is far from a shoo-in for the Speakers job, both because of that position and also because of a view among younger Democrats that she has, as minority leader, been too eager to do deals with the other side. She will likely get the job on a vote of the existing house until January, but when the new gang arrive in January, and given her age – 78 – a new top broom may be called for.
So the President looks safe for at least a few more months, however the Florida chads may fall.
*Chads are the card cuts which should fall from voter cards when the voting machine handle is pulled. Their tendency to hang and not fall lost Al Gore Florida, and thus the Presidency, in 2000. That generation of voting machines, like that generation of politicians, has since been scrapped.
