Election Day is four days past, and we in the land of instant gratification are frustrated. We’re pretty sure we know who will serve as president for the next four years, but the election results are muddled. The popular vote and the electoral vote aren’t going to match. Irregularities are being alleged in Florida, a state governed by a brother of the candidate who will apparently win the entire election on the basis of a very, very few Florida votes.

It’s a mess one would expect to happen somewhere else — in a developing African nation, perhaps, or a country recently freed from communist oppression. But no, this is this United States of America, a republic that’s long touted itself as the very epitome of democracy. We’ve sent diplomats to monitor elections in those fledgling democracies because we believed we were the experts. And now, look at us.

No matter what happens, the man who will be president for the next for years will be handicapped by what’s happened this week. Not only did more people vote against him than for him, more people voted for one specific losing candidate than for the winner. Taken on its face, that statistic means that not all votes counted equally. The majority has not ruled, nor has the largest minority. How much credibility will that give our president, ostensibly the leader of the free world, in foreign policy? For whom will he be speaking?

In order to redeem, even partially, the image of the United States in the eyes of the world, two results must come out of this morass. First, and most immediately, we must ensure that the problems which led to the disenfranchisement of some Florida voters are corrected. That is a significant issue regardless of who wins this election, although it might not have come to the public attention if the race had not been so close. Voting is a privilege and, as such, should require some thought on the part of the voter, but when ballot design becomes a stumbling block for more than a very few — let alone more than 19,000 — reform is clearly needed. Likewise, there should be no impediments to access to the polls. Drivers’ license checks can wait for another day.

Over the long term, our system of electing a president clearly needs to be overhauled so that it guarantees that the will of the people will be followed. The 2000 vote count has been such a confusing process that we may never know, with absolute certainty, what their will was in this election. Unfortunate as that revelation is, even more disturbing is the realization that we, as a democracy, have no way of sorting it out. We have no mechanism for dealing with problems of this sort. It’s become abundantly clear that no matter what the eventual results of this election are, far too many Americans will believe that it wasn’t handled ethically and honestly. That belief can be deadly for a democracy. Once is crippling; twice might be fatal.