By Tony Curzon Price
"There are no perfect elections," Judge Alfonsina Berta Navarro Hidalgo (Judge in the recent Mexican Presidential Election re-count)
A close vote should be the moment of perfection for the democratic process. If I am in a huge minority or a huge majority, I know in my bones that my vote won't really affect outcomes. I might as well stay at home: my vote may be counted, but it won't count.
It is the nail-bitingly close which really should be democracy's forte. If the population is perfectly balanced at 50/50, then ANY change of mind by ANY one person changes the fate of the country. There is no doubt that my vote counts, and I would be a fool to stay at home.
So much for the theory. Gore/Bush in 2000, Calderon/Obrador in 2006 both point to a disturbing reality: when a democratic state is close to being perfectly balanced, when a handful of votes might actually make a difference, you may as well not bother: your vote may be counted, but it won't be re-counted. The courts decide who wins.
Al Gore was quoted over the weekend as admitting that in the US, there is "No internediate step between a definitive supreme court decision and violent revolution". He should have added that there is no intermediate step between a close election and a supreme court decision, as well.
So here we seem to have the reality of modern mass elections: if your vote won't count, it will be counted; and if it ever might count, the courts will decide, not the electorate. The judges, our guardians of order, can only accept Democracy when, from the point of view of the individual voter, it doesn't really work.
