Give Zimbabwe our
dangling chads

We're pretty smug about elections in the United States. At least we were, until the presidential Florida fiasco. But we do tend to have orderly, accurate transfers of power, even if the vote-tallying technology is out of date.

Elsewhere, democratic elections are a nice idea that degenerates into a ballot-stuffing free-for-all. The recent presidential election in Zimbabwe is a case in point. Supposedly, Robert Mugabe won, but our government doesn't approve. "We are not recognizing the outcome of the election because we think it's flawed," said President Bush. Secretary of State Colin Powell complained that Zimbabwe's election "lacked democratic legitimacy."

Well, OK. We have a country full of outmoded voting machines that are still light-years ahead of what's available elsewhere. Let's give them to countries that could use them. The United Nations could oversee Third-World elections as advisers and technology consultants. Then we'd have no one to blame but ourselves next time another country's election didn't go our way.

Nancy Christenson McNamee

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