O MATTER WHO WINS the presidency, some voters have already lost the election.
Black voters, Haitian voters, butterfly-ballot voters headed to the polls but stumbled into snafus and mix-ups. Laws may have been broken. Systems certainly failed.
To some, it seemed too much like the bad old days. Benjamin Quarles writes in his book ''The Negro in the Making of America'' of the late 1800s:
''Regarding voting, the white South felt that the time was ripe to exclude the Negro legally, that it could adopt better and more permanent techniques of disenfranchisement than those of intimidation and violence.''
In the 1940s, Quarles continues, ''a Negro,'' who wanted to vote had ''to run an obstacle course strewn with technical roadblocks.''
What makes today different? The hopeful answer is lack of explicit intent. There may be pockets of corrosion in our voting system, but not great rivers of corruption designed to drown entire groups of voters.
Still, even with the compassionate judgment that the United States means to be - and is - better than its checkered past, current circumstances are deeply disturbing. It's too easy to make the facts add up to a business-as-usual conspiracy.
Haitian voters complained that their names were not on registration lists and that they were denied interpreters and voting booth assistance that had been promised. Others said they were asked for more proof of their identity than is legally required. A New York Times analysis found that in Florida black voters were more likely than whites to live in counties that used punch card ballots, which are more likely to yield errors.
In some cases, election officials admitted they simply lacked the resources to handle the volume of voters.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is investigating. This week, NAACP officials announced they would file suits to dig into this election and prevent problems in future elections.
A more common reaction is a sympathetic but helpless shrug - concern but surrender to the fact that mistakes are made. More chilling are political leaders who loudly proclaim that ballots have been counted when in fact no record has been made of voters' intentions. Such leaders seem coolly detached from the question: What makes today different?
The lasting tragedy of this election will not be found in declaring that one man stole the presidency from another. The lasting tragedy will be found among American families who will add 21st-century stories to the long historic narrative of how, despite their best efforts, they were denied the chance to vote.
