If George W. Bush does finally carry the state of Florida by a handful of votes while Al Gore wins the popular vote by what appeared yesterday to be a margin of a quarter of a million, the stage will be set for a profound reappraisal of one of the revered constitutional quirks the United States inherited from its founding fathers.
It is called the electoral college, an assembly of 538 delegates (or electors), from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, selected according to the vote in those states.
It is the electoral college, not the people, which ultimately chooses the president, and this form of indirect democracy is deliberate. Back in 1787, when the system was thought up, the revered founding fathers did not have total confidence in the ordinary man. The population was liable to be reckless, they thought. The college would serve as a buffer, made up of men drawn from the educated elite who, Alexander Hamilton argued, would "possess the information and discernment requisite" to the task of choosing a president.
It is an interesting aspect of US politics that Americans show even more reverence for traditions than the British. The founding fathers retain a heroic, untouchable status which means that the wording of the constitution and its famous amendments are treated almost as sacred.
The last time major controversy arose was in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland but won the White House on the strength of his victory in the electoral college.
That was then. This is now. There is arguably less tolerance now for the popular will to be overturned. Either way, a crisis over the role of the electoral college in a country which generally views its system as a distillation of democracy would be, in the words of one of the potential electors this year, "a complete mess".