By Denis Campbell
Say what? After spending much of this year explaining the US electoral system for BBC listeners and viewers, this headline could cause coffee to spurt out of some noses in the UK. What do you mean almost? Will it ever end?
Yesterday was the 1st Monday following the 2nd Wednesday in December (I kid you not). In a country obsessed with Mondays (Supreme Court meets for the first time after their summer break on the infamous 1st Monday in October), in Presidential election years this is the date when the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. The votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on Jan. 6 opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress.
So yesterday the 538 state electors met in Capitol buildings across the USA and cast their electoral votes. This means 55 people in CA, 3 in the District of Columbia, 27 in Florida and the rest met to officially cast their one vote, as mandated by the Election Day result, for Senator Barack Obama, while electors in Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina and the states John McCain won dutifully cast their ballots for the Arizona Senator.
You would think with two elections now in the bag that would be the end of it, but in the words of the late, great US talk show host Johnny Carson speaking as Karnac the Magnificent, “you would be wrong there ballot box breath.”
Barack H. Obama will not be officially the elected the 44th President until the 111th Congress convenes on 06 January, swears in its new members and certifies the electors result. 14-days later Obama will take the oath of office at Noon on 20 January.
The Electoral College is a source of great frustration for many and the only true check and balance for smaller states to ensure their voice is heard. No matter what one thinks it is the only measure that matters for electing a President. The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution 220 years ago as a compromise for the presidential election process.
Some politicians believed a purely popular election was too “reckless,” while others objected to giving Congress or a ruling party the power to select the president as in most Parliamentary systems. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates.
As we saw in the famous 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore received 538,000 more popular votes than George Bush but lost the Electoral College vote 271-266 when the United States Supreme Court ordered a halt to the Florida recount of questionable ballots thus awarding Florida and its 27 Electoral Votes to George Bush.
Electors mostly do as they are charged but in that election Al Gore actually had 267 electoral votes with one elector from Washington, DC casting a blank ballot in protest of DC’s lack of state rights.
In past elections electors have voted as the ballots in their state demand In 21 states though electors are not obligated by law to vote for the candidate for whom they were selected.
In the 29 states where electors are obligated by law or pledge, they can often still vote against their party without being replaced. Some states issue only minimal fines as punishment. This inconsistency allows for discrepancies in our electoral system. The Electors from nearly half the states can vote however they wish, regardless of the popular will of the state.
The Electoral College was established to prevent the people from making “uneducated” decisions. The founders feared the easily-swayed opinions of the public and designed the Electoral College as a protection from the easily-swayed public.
Since the founding of the Electoral College, there have been 156 “faithless” Electors, those who voted against the wishes of the voters. 71 of these votes were changed because the original candidate died before the day on which the Electoral College cast their votes. Three votes were not cast at all as three Electors chose to abstain from casting their Electoral vote for any candidate. The other 82 Electoral votes were changed on the personal initiative of the Elector.
Sometimes Electors changed votes in groups, such as when 23 Virginia Electors acted together in 1836. Many times Electors stood alone in their decision. As of the 2000 election, no Elector changed the outcome of an election by voting against their party’s designated candidate.
So the longest campaign in history still lives for 21-more days as we await the official election result from Congress. Obama fought for 21 months, beat back the challenges of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and even a Supreme Court case contesting his birth in the USA (don’t ask, the right just gets loonier by the minute).
Barry can wait a few more days.
