Social SciencesConstitutional LawPolitical ScienceAmerican PoliticsDemocratizationElectoral PoliticsElectionsVoting Behavior
In the United States this past year, the tension between constitutionalism and democracy was not an abstract theoretical problem. In the late fall of 2000, the tension became an all-out fight over who would decide the outcome of the American presidential election: the Supreme Court or the people? Would there be a new round of voting by those in Florida who misread their ballots or were wrongly barred from casting theirs? Would ballots be recounted according to a single Court-given standard? Or would the election be called (some might say stalled) by the Court? We all know what happened in the end. Ostensibly concerned about the risks of fracture, division, and uncertainty, the Supreme Court ended the counting in Florida, effectively deciding the election on behalf of George W. Bush. Until the Court's decision of the case, Americans were becoming educated about the politics of elections. The curtain was pulled back for a moment and all saw how arbitrary, subjective, irrational, and political was the machinery of U.S. elections, the guarantor of one person one vote. Thus, along with the risks of fracture and division came the risks and promises of demystification, outrage, and involvement.' These latter risks and promises, the risks and promises of democracy, were averted by the Court's intervention. The tense relationship between constitutionalism and democracy is built into the very heart of liberal democracies, which take as their ground and goal