MEDIATION AND POST-ELECTION LITIGATION however, are not about preserving relationships between the two sides. Enhancing "understanding" between the parties is not relevant or useful in the context of election disputes. Chances are good that . candidates from opposing parties will not have an ongoing relationship post-election. Furthermore, political parties in this country have been trying to understand each other for generations, so far without much success. Finally, smooth and efficient elections are a cornerstone of democratic transfer of power. Too much litigation threatens to derail the legitimacy of the electoral outcome. Scholars have pointed to the dramatic increase in litigation as a threat to the legitimacy of elections in this country.46 One hope would be that mediation could stem this tide and help disputants avoid the damage protracted litigation does to public confidence. Others might argue that injecting "alternative" dispute resolution processes like mediation into an already fraught dispute environment is more than the public could take. Most people are not familiar with mediation or its core principles,47 and may be more suspect of mediation than tried-and-true adversarial resolution in the courts. 48 Litigation is at least a process that the public (and election attorneys) understand.49 As the above discussion makes clear, there are some very real reasons to pause when thinking through the value of mediation in post-election disputes. 11 HARV . NEGOT. L. REv. 1, 31 (2006) ("Facilitative processes, such as mediation, are less appropriate in cases where facts need to be determined."). 46Jnfra note 62, at 29. 47 Neither, for that matter, are lawyers, who are often skeptical of mediation (at best) and seek to game the mediation process (at worst). See John Lande & Jean R. Sternlight, The Potential Contribution ofADR to an Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students for Real World Lawyering, 25 OHIO ST. J. ON DISP. RESOL. 247 (2010) ("Many believe that lawyers' adversarial methods and mindsets are inherently inconsistent with mediation."); Leonard L. Riskin, Mediation and Lawyers, 43 OHIO ST. L.J. 29, 57-59 (1982) (exploring how lawyers look at the world might contribute to lawyer distrust of mediation); Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley, Lawyers, Non-Lawyers and Mediation: Rethinking the Professional Monopoly from a Problem-Solving Perspective, 7 HARv. NEGOT. L. REv. 235, 252 (2002) (lawyers' involvement in mediation might make ADR "more adversarial and legalistic") as cited in Robert Rubinson, Mapping the World: Facts and Meaning in Adjudication and Mediation , 63 ME. L. REv. 61, 87, n.l63 (2010). 4 8 Richard C. Reuben, Constitutional Gravity: A Unitary Theory of ADR and Public Civil Justice, 47 UCLA L. REv. 949, 985 (2000) ("[w]hile training and professional culture may help explain lawyer skepticism about ADR, the lay public also has reasons to view ADR as less legitimate than trial."). 4 9 Owen Fiss, Against Settlement, 93 YALE L.J. 1073, 1087 (1984) (noting that certain cases present "a genuine social need for an authoritative interpretation of law"). See also David Luban, Settlements and the Erosion of the Public Realm, 83 GEO. L.J. 2619,2633-35 (1995). 335 HeinOnline -- 27 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 335 2012