On the evening of November 7, 2000, erstwhile polling stations in the United States began to close, nothing predicted a constitutional crisis. It was 1 of the most distributed elections in history. After 8 years of the presidency of Bill Clinton, his vice president Al Gore fought for the continuation of Democratic politics. His rival was George W. Bush – politician of Texas, boy of the erstwhile president, typical of the Republican Party. The polls indicated a tie.
Around 19:50 east time, American media announced that the key state of Florida—which provided 25 electorate votes—was captured by Gore. It could have been the end of the night. But within an hour, the tv stations began to withdraw. The consequence was besides uncertain. At 2:16 a.m., it was announced that Florida, however, belonged to Bush. Gore called his rival to congratulate him on his triumph and 40 minutes later he withdrew his congratulations. The difference in vote in this state was respective 100 – over 6 million cast.
Can this script happen again in Poland?
Election 2025. Electrical strategy and non-holed cards
In the US, presidential elections are not straight decided by citizens. Voters vote for electors whose number is assigned to each state. The "winner takes everything" rule makes even a tiny difference in the vote in a large state possible to find the result of the full country. And so it was – Florida was to decide who would become the 43rd president of the United States.
The problems started with paper. In Palm Beach County, the alleged butterfly ballot was utilized – ballot cards in which the names of the candidates were placed on the left and right, and the voice was given, punching the appropriate field between them. The design, designed for older people, was so confusing that thousands of voters voted by mistake for them the least likely candidate in the improvement organization election, reasoning they were voting for Gore.
In another counties, alleged punch-card machines were utilized – machines that required physical card piercing in the right place. If the gap was besides weak, the card was not counted as valid. In many cases the machines did not consider them votes and the manual conversion was late. There was no single electoral strategy in Florida. Each region utilized different technologies and different counting standards. What was a voice in Miami could have been rejected in Jacksonville.
Election 2025. In the United States, they had 36 days of chaos.
After automatic device counting, Bush's advantage over Gore in the state was 1784 votes. After further corrections – 327. 537 votes. That's how much 1 candidate was separated from the office of president. Gore's staff demanded a manual number of the votes in the 4 most problematic counties. Under Florida law, he had the right to do so.
But in parallel, a violent media and political conflict began. Republicans organized protests in local committees. There was a celebrated demonstration in Miami-Dade, which included Republican congressmen and Bush co-workers – later named by Brooks Brothers Riot journalists. According to the logic of the campaign, any additional vote conversion was a hazard of failure of advantage.
The dispute went to court quickly. The Florida ultimate Court has ordered the continuation of the manual conversion. But then the highest instance came into play.
Election 2025. Combat in ultimate Court
On December 12, 2000, the United States ultimate Court concluded that the diversity of procedures violates the equal legal protection contained in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This clause is intended to guarantee that all citizen is treated by the state with the same care for his rights. And since 1 vote can be counted in region A, but rejected in region B, we're dealing with a violation of that rule.
Until then, the reasoning of the court seemed consistent. But the most crucial thing was what was done later alternatively of ordering the process to be standardized and to proceed the hand-counting of votes – the Court found that this could not be done rapidly adequate and ordered the immediate interruption of the vote counting (and hence to this day the memes "STOP THE COUNT", which you have surely seen). Thus George Bush became president.
The next day his rival made a message in which he said that although he profoundly disagreed with the court's decision, he accepted it to not deepen chaos. The case would most likely have been over for years if it hadn't been for the 9/11 bombings.
Election 2025. What conclusions come to Poland?
I say present after 21 both sides will announce the triumph and will not wait for the authoritative result of the election.
This will not be frivolity, but calculation. In the era of instant transmission more crucial than the protocol will be the first headline, the first live account, the first "win!" put on the network. The more uncertain the outcome, the more force to get ahead of the another side.
The external origin will besides work in all of this. Even if the consequence is “too close to call”, abroad congratulations will come quickly. Just a fewer hours after closing, you can tweet from the White House, congratulations from Berlin, London, Brussels. Intentions can be good – a catastrophic effect. 1 page will say: “See? The planet already knows!’ Two: “This is simply a scandal! The votes have not yet been counted!’ And so, before anything is settled, the communicative of forgery and betrayal will begin to live its own life.
There will besides be controversy at organization level. According to the Constitution, it is the ultimate Court that announces the validity of the elections. 1 organization would like the election to be decided by the home of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs (not recognized by the European Court of Human Rights as a court). On the another hand, the Sejm wanted judges with the longest stature to decide on the importance of elections, but president Duda vetoed this solution.
In addition, reports of irregularities will flow all hour. Part of it will be true: an unclosed urn, no stamp, bad hr on the record. any will be invented. But everything – as in Florida – will become ammunition. Hundreds of reports, memes, entries. Thousands of people convinced that something was taken from them.
In 2000, America stopped the elections in the mediate of the count. In 2025 Poland can hold assurance in the mediate of the announcement of results.
