Recounts Are Part of the Game
By MIKLOS HARASZTI
December 6, 2000

Budapest-- I don't mean to brag, but a decade ago I personally
experienced the political limbo suffered by America's two would-be
presidents over the past few weeks.

It happened during Hungary's first free parliamentary elections after
Communist rule, in the slummiest neighborhood of downtown Budapest,
Jozsefvaros, or District 8. The main contenders were the candidates of
the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum and the liberal Alliance
of Free Democrats. In my district, I was the Alliance candidate and
won with a majority of 16. Yes, 16 votes.

Unlike the United States, which has enjoyed more than 200 uninterrupted
years of democracy, freshly free Hungary had no problem applying a
universal voting technology. No dimples, pimples, indentations, or chads
with one, two or three corners hanging out. Thanks to the cursed
Communist past, Hungarian voters had decades of practice making a
uniform motion of the pencil over an always uniform (that is, option-free)
ballot list.

But even this Communist-trained voting precision could not get my
opponent to acknowledge my victory. Apparently he believed that 16
votes were too few to make me the victor, and he cited some complaints
over invalidated ballots that were in fact valid. The local electoral
committee ordered a manual recount of all invalidated votes.

A legal battle ensued, and the race quickly became a national story in
Hungary. (CNN did not pick it up, perhaps because of the famously
gracious manners of District 8 inhabitants, and their dignified rule-of-law
approach in cases of disagreement.)

At that moment I could have accused my opponent of trying to steal my
rightful victory. Or I could have charged that the recount method had
been inherently flawed. But I didn't even exclaim, "The people have
spoken" as if my 16-vote edge had been a sweep. I could have, since the
campaign had been madly partisan, and I had not promised I would be a
uniter.

Our first free Parliament had already convened to start its charming
quarrels as the manual recount of the invalid votes ended. And then
democracy produced its miracle again. The National Electoral
Committee announced that my opponent had won by one vote. Yes, one
vote.

I immediately asked the committee for a manual recount of all the votes
cast in the election. Thanks to my strategic civility, my opponent could
not even dream of stonewalling. Don't ask me what my legal pretext was.
The committee simply decided that one vote was a sufficiently small
advantage to warrant a full recount, period. (Actually, that single vote in
Jozsefvaros, if taken proportionally, is a four times bigger advantage than
the 900-vote margin in Florida that the Bush camp declined to
acknowledge as a justification for recount.)

To cut a monthlong television drama short, the national committee ended
up declaring me the winner after all. And guess what the edge was?
Sixteen. Yes, 16 votes.

"Back to the truth," said some in Jozsefvaros. My voters are probably
still convinced that it is the original advantage that saved me.

Watching the spectacle in Florida, I have been stunned to see that half of
the electorate in one of the oldest democracies on earth has been incited
into believing that its will has been thwarted by a conspiracy, with the
Florida Supreme Court as accessory.

When the election turned complicated, George W. Bush should have sent
his advisers to Jozsefvaros for a lesson. Here, every voter has known for
10 years the wisdom that democracy's majority rule works wonderfully
easily only until the time when it is most needed: when the majority is
small.


Miklos Haraszti, a columnist for The Budapest Business Journal and
a former member of the Hungarian Parliament, teaches in the
University of California's Budapest program.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/opinion/06HARA.html