In the aftermath of an election that has certainly taken its toll on logic, rhetoric and American tolerance, Jim Lindgrin at Volokh Conspiracy argues that this election was the most corrupt in his lifetime.  He’s been around a while, so that’s saying something.  After noting that the Democrats are likely to make some changes in our institutions, he notes:

What we are unlikely to see over the next four years is progress on serious defects [citing to a New York Post article] in the press and the electoral process that this election revealed.

It is ironic that in 2008 we probably have two of the most honest and decent men running for president that we have had in a long time, and yet this has easily been the most corrupt election in my lifetime.

Essentially, Jim’s focus is on two aspects that have received much Republican attention, the ACORN voter registration scandal and the collection of illegal campaign contributions.  The third problem raised is the complaint that the mainstream media is controlled by liberals.

Last, the press’s performance in 2008 has been appalling. Unfortunately, we have a mediated democracy, mediated by the press. Until the newsrooms are integrated politically, it is difficult for citizens to get the information they need to make informed decisions.

At the moment, this all smacks of sour grapes.  It smells of a conservative effort at payback for the fiasco following the 2000 election, where hanging chads and a Supreme Court decision put the legitimacy of George W. Bush’s presidency in question.  So the effort this time around is to do the same to Barack Obama, though it’s got little traction since there is no doubt as to the legitimacy of his victory.  Indeed, the new argument by Orin Kerr is whether his 7 percent margin constitutes a “mandate”.

It’s impossible to quantify corruption, particularly when it’s entirely theoretical, so that a claim that this is the most corrupt election makes sense.  Many of Lindgrin’s fellow conspirators have already doubted his assessment.  The unfortunate truth is that there have always been claims of corruption during presidential campaigns, making it as American as apple pie.  Still, it isn’t a good thing, so Lindgrin’s point, that these are matters to be addressed and “fixed” in the interim, remains valid, even if this election wasn’t as corrupt as others.

Not that the next President won’t have plenty on his hands when he takes office, but the federal government has plenty of arms and legs to handle other matters as the President spends his time thinking hard about the biggest issues.  As holes reveal themselves, there’s no reason why others in lesser agencies in Washington can’t spend some time filling them.  The next four years will be a particularly good time to do so, since the validity of the election of Barack Obama will never be seriously questioned by any beyond the hardcore lunatic fringe.

But there’s one aspect of “corruption” noted by Lindgrin that will never be subject to a “fix”.  The media, for which Lindgrin cites to a New York Post article to prove that it was really bad.  Now Lindgrin teaches at Northwestern, so he might not be aware of this, but the New York Post is not exactly a respected source of news in New York.  It’s a kooky, funny, hard right-wing tabloid.  Fun to read on the train ride home, but not to be taken seriously.

America has developed a two-path media, the mainstream media which is derided as the eastern liberal elite because they are weighed down by thought and research, and Fox News, which is fair and balanced as long as you believe in political alien abductions.  On the night of the election, Sean Hannity spewed some of his harshest vitriol at the next President of the United States.  He has a right to do so.  He has no right to demand that the rest of the media adopt his bile.

The fact that the mainstream media has heard and seen what Lindgrin hears and sees doesn’t require it to become their focus.  Perhaps the best answer is that any bias, and I have no doubt that there is bias whenever someone has to pick between reporting about competing views of reality, is one that the media comes by honestly.  They hear the claims and arguments, and make their decision on what and how to report.

Lindgrin sees this as a defect in the press, because there aren’t enough of his kind in the newsroom.  Neither side has the right, or the ability, to ram their positions down the media’s throat, forcing them to report news to favor their views.  To the extent that the mainstream media doesn’t reflect right wing views is the natural by-product of their experience. 

Even if a new gang in Washington fixes the problems that arose this time around, like voter registration fraud or campaign contribution tracking, not to mention the wealth of more localized issues like telling blacks the wrong day to vote or Hispanics that they will be arrested if they show up at the polls, there will be new problems four years from now.  The stakes are too high for some to allow democracy to proceed without a little help, and they will find ways, whether old or new, to try to game the system.  It’s the American way.

There is, however, one issue that everyone should agree is unacceptable, though I assume that even this would raise dispute.  Every vote should be counted.  It is intolerable that new-fangled voting machines have problems tabulating votes.  It is intolerable that states are rewriting laws to prevent lawful voters from casting their ballots.  It is intolerable that ballots are constructed in a manner that confuses any voter. 

When we engage in the next campaign for the presidency, there will be someone playing “dirty tricks” somewhere, and there will be others screaming fraud and corruption.  But in the end, this is what democracy produces, no more or less “corrupt” than demanding that voters have a clue why they vote the way they do.  If we can at least assure every voter the right to cast a ballot, though, we’ve accomplished something.