Tantrums in the Streets?

Ballots, we often say, are substitutes for bullets, because elections provide ways to settle issues that might otherwise produce violence. The saying makes sense, but ballots can produce bullets too, a fact usually ignored. Sometimes election violence comes from outsiders, as did the terrorist attacks in Madrid in March. Our government has repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda might attack here during our election cycle.

Violence from the outside is a possibility, but it is internal tensions that normally generate election strife. Obviously, fear of violence from abroad could be part of that tension. The very suggestion that election violence might happen this year may sound odd. Our recent elections have been so peaceful that we think ourselves immune from the scourge, associating it with the less-developed world. When election violence occurs there, it is usually connected to electoral fraud; even when manipulated results do not produce strife immediately, tensions often erupt later. This explains why so many countries regularly use international monitors to help assure the authenticity of the voting, which reminds us of last week's warning from former President Carter, who has organized many such monitoring efforts. "Some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida," he wrote.

Election violence has occurred in every type of state with open public elections and in other kinds of communities as well. Popes used to be elected in election campaigns that produced so much violence that in the 15th century public election campaigns were abolished. No election violence has occurred since.

In the United States, ballots produced bullets many times. Americans are largely oblivious to this fact, partly because the subject is not usually discussed. Violence can erupt even when an election is peaceful. None occurred in 1860, but the South decided that the campaign debates demonstrated it could not live with Abraham Lincoln as president. The resulting Civil War occasioned more American casualties than all our other wars combined.

The 1860 election is a dramatic demonstration that elections can aggravate preexisting tensions. Candidates must emphasize differences to attract voters, and in doing so, they inevitably exaggerate the potential stakes. The military metaphors employed by candidates and media are particularly striking and revealing. Parties wage "campaigns" that employ "strategy and tactics." Party faithful are called "rank and file," and areas with many supporters are "strongholds" or "citadels." President Bush's biggest financial supporters are called "rangers."