Ales Rarus

This election's shaping up to be another humdinger.

THE HOARY QUESTION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

In the middle of a contentious election, in the fourth year of an administration that didn't win the popular vote, in an era of ennui, this is the probably the worst possible time to ask one of the hardest questions of our political life. But that is also why this question cannot be avoided:

Should the Electoral College survive in its current form, or at all?

Florida 2000: The Sequel

Newspapers and magazines have been full of stories raising the disturbing possibility that the 2004 presidential election could once again end up in the courts: Will we wake up on Nov. 3 not knowing whether George W. Bush or John Kerry will be president for the next four years? Will the Supreme Court intervene again? How did things end up this way? Didn't the country learn anything from the Florida debacle of 2000?