Scholars analyze election online

The Supreme Court's decision in Bush vs. Gore ending the chaoticpresidential campaign of 2000 may have also created the largestprotection for voting rights since the historic one person-one voterulings of the mid-20th century.

That is the conclusion of University of Chicago law Professor CassR. Sunstein in a unique collection of views on the consequences ofthe Supreme Court's actions last December.

In the first online publishing venture of the University ofChicago Press, Sunstein and another 10 legal scholars offer theiropinions on the legitimacy of the high court's rulings in theelection controversy.

Sunstein, who with University of Chicago Law School interim DeanRichard Epstein edited The Vote, said one feature of the decision wasa spelling out of an equal protection claim.

If a vote is not counted in one area when it would be in another,something is amiss, said Sunstein. For example, he asks readers tosuppose that "in one county a vote will not count unless the stylusgoes all the way through, whereas in another county, a vote countsmerely because it contains a highly visible `dimple.'

"This means people are being treated unequally with respect to thevote, just as in the one person-one vote cases," Sunstein told theChicago Sun-Times.

However, he said it is too early to predict "what the court willdo in future cases to expand or contract this principle."

In another essay, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge RichardA. Posner outlines why, even if the hand recounts had been completed,Gore would have lost the election, and in another piece, Universityof Chicago law Professor David A. Strauss details how the SupremeCourt acted by illegitimate means to prevent the Florida SupremeCourt from giving the election to Gore.

In his introduction, Sunstein provides a general chronology of theevents in the long post-election struggle and a glance at the legalissues. He observed that reactions to the court's ruling are sharplydivided on political grounds.

"To oversimplify: Gore supporters tend to think that the Court waswrong, even ludicrously wrong: Bush supporters tend to think that theCourt's decision was defensible, right, perhaps even heroic, amongspecialists and nonspecialists," said Sunstein, who voted for Gorebut says he ultimately felt that Bush should be named president "forthe good of the country."

The University of Chicago Press is offering advance online accessto a draft version of The Vote, to be published in the fall. AfterApril 16, the $18 book can be pre-ordered at www.thevotebook.com.Those who order the book will be given a password for the onlineversion.