One of the reasons the United States of America is held up as the world’s model for democracy is that our constitution does not place severe restrictions on voting. We’re well past the era in which only white males who owned property could cast a ballot; now the only qualifications are that one must be an adult with a current physical address, a citizen, and not a felon. We require no literacy exams, no income qualifications, no IQ tests. We assume that citizens are competent to decide which candidates will best represent them.

The theory behind our lack of barriers is that a democracy is most representative when it allows the broadest participation. If we thought about this entire process logically, we’d realize that monolithic public opinion wouldn’t serve the country well at all. We need diversity and debate. Why, then, are so many Americans going out of their way to criticize those who have opinions different from their own?

At an open house at the newspaper office on Election Night (now renamed Endless Night), one voter was heard to comment that Al Gore would undoubtedly do well in states that have high levels of participation in entitlement programs. The implication was that millions of people would vote not for the good of the country but to keep their welfare checks coming. A fully employed Gore supporter standing nearby took exception.

Soon the nastiness swung the other way, with someone asking how anyone could bear to vote for someone as stupid as George W. Bush. The derivative (and largely recreational) debate that followed seemed characterized by the belief that one side was ordained by divine right and the other was populated by idiots.

A week later, with no end in sight, political conversation has deteriorated even further. We’re hearing that those voters in closely contested states who cast their ballots for Ralph Nader "didn’t know what they were doing." We’re told that Floridians who cannot figure out the ballot should not be allowed to vote.

The candidates themselves are doing little to raise the tone of the debate. Bush, in suggesting that Gore should end the agony and formalize his concession, has inadvertently (we hope) suggested that the vote totals really don’t matter all that much. Last Tuesday night, Gore, after being informed that the Florida count had flipflopped once more, was provoked to speak to the man who will probably be president in a tone that could start an international incident if used to address a foreign head of state.