Word: deadlocked
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...weakness of America's checks-and-balances system is the possibility of a constitutional crisis when any two branches of government are locked in conflict. It is conceivable that the Florida Supreme Court, which is heavily Democratic, and the Florida legislature, which is heavily Republican, could reach a deadlock about which set of electors rightfully represents the state...
...Mexico has worked this out. If the voters deadlock, the law hands the outcome over to a game of chance: the candidates can flip a coin, draw a card from a deck or play a hand of poker--assuming they can agree. Florida law allows for drawing straws. But this tie is elusive, imperfect as the election that produced it because when you are shuffling through 6 million votes and double-punched ballots and hanging chads and missing postmarks and the whole archaeology of human frailty, every count by machine or by hand yields a different result, each so close...
...gross misinterpretation of their own legislation. They ignore the dimpled chad-enhanced vote (remember, the Florida Supreme Court as much as handed them the right to do just that) and appoint their own slate of (Republican) electors. The legislature could also cave to the pressure of a deadlock and appoint two slates of electors, one Democrat and one Republican, and leave it up to Congress to make the decision as to which slate will represent Florida in the electoral college vote...
...Republicans controlled the Senate, the Democrats the House. Which body would count the electoral votes? To resolve the deadlock, Congress appointed an electoral commission. By an 8-to-7 party-line vote, the commission gave all the disputed votes to Hayes. This represented a supreme election swindle, and there was a season of great bitterness. As a final noble gesture, though, Tilden asked his supporters not to riot outside the Capitol...
...system was never designed for such a fluke. The last time it happened--in 1876--the deadlock was resolved by a corrupt deal that ended Reconstruction. The closest we have come to the edge in recent years was 1960, when Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago was credibly accused of widespread fraud and corruption in throwing Illinois to John Kennedy...