US Elections: FBI clears Clinton

Washington: More than Hillary Clinton and her core band of supporters, a group of 50 Americans heaved a deep sigh of relief that is echoed from coast to coast in the US on election-eve. They are relieved because of FBI director James Comey's stunning decision to exonerate the Democratic presidential candidate on charges that Clinton endangered national security by mishandling her emails as secretary of state. These men and women are the provincial secretaries of state who are responsible for the conduct of Tuesday's elections and the orderly and peaceful declaration of results. Unlike in India, the US has no independent Election Commission and these secretaries of state, all elected officials, are often the targets of ire from losing candidates. Comey wrote to Congress that "the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation". He informed lawmakers that "during that process we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton". Comey's July conclusion was that Clinton had not engaged in any criminal misconduct but had only been careless and negligent, for which she has already expressed her regret to the American people. Before Comey's exoneration of Clinton for the second time, provincial secretaries of state had agonised in the last few days that the presidential election would be inconclusive on Tuesday and that there may be no clear winner as in 2000 when Democrat Al Gore refused to concede to Republican George W. Bush. If that happened, the election could drag on for weeks as provisional ballots and early votes are counted if the election day's booth tally resulted in a very close outcome that was open to challenge. Most American states allow voters to cast provisional ballots if their names are not on the electoral rolls although they had registered to vote. Or, if a voter turning up at the polling station arrived without adequate identification. Normally, provisional ballots are not counted - or are counted late only for the record - if the number of such ballots is lesser than the majority secured by a successful candidate in a state. In such cases, results of provisional ballots do not change the outcome in that state. Then there are early votes that are cast. They have to be counted manually unlike polling day votes that are recorded on electronic voting machines, the results from which are available as soon as polls close. This year, 42 million Americans have already cast their votes well before polling day. This historic high means that more than one-fifth of the US electorate of 200 million has already voted, leaving a huge task before provincial secretaries of state of manually counting these votes. If the outcome is close in any state, the manual votes are often open to challenge. Again, presidential results may well be delayed as in 2000, a nightmare scenario for the provincial secretaries of state. A week ago, when Comey told Congress that the investigating agency had come across a new trove of emails from Clinton that was open to suspicion in their handling, the FBI director had turned the presidential election process on its head. Fears that Clinton would be prosecuted -- and possibly impeached - after she is elected President had created a sudden enthusiasm deficit among the Democratic Party rank and file. The revelation also drove many Independents away from Clinton and left many undecided voters even more undecided about voting for her. Consequently, she slipped below the majority threshold of 270 in the electoral college in the final week of the campaign from a steady score of 300-plus in successive opinion polls week after week. Conversely, her Republican rival Donald Trump was energised into concluding that a new FBI investigation had reopened his possible path to victory on Tuesday night. Trump marshalled new resources all of last week, rearranged his campaign schedule and deployed high-voltage Republican firepower in key battleground states in a determined bid to move those states into his victory column. Last night's exoneration of Clinton by the FBI has turned out to be a dampener for his hopes once again, unless the usual voter signals are misleading. Just as Trump has questioned the fairness of the US election process at various stages in his campaign, he accused the Washington system last night of conspiring against him in the wake of Comey's new letter to Congress. Trump is now expecting a revolt by junior officers in the FBI against this alleged foul play, but any such revolt seems unlikely. Clinton, on the other hand, has not gone to town over her exoneration and is giving the impression that it was only to be expected as she was all along maintaining that she had done nothing wrong. Clinton did not even issue a statement on her exoneration, but left it to her junior aides to deal with it as a minor, routine development. Nor did she refer to it in her campaign speeches late Sunday in Cleveland.