The following is an article by Thomas Melia, VP of Programs at the National Democratic Institute in Washington which he wrote several weeks ago foretelling the situation Americans are now facing with this presidential election. It was forwarded to me by a staff member with tongue-in-cheek comment that perhaps NDI should consider extending its election-monitoring mandate to cover elections in the US given the fiasco in Florida. Who knows how many Floridas there are in this year's presidential elections. John Quincy Adams, the only son of a US President became minority President-thanks to the Electoral College system. Ironically, another son of a former US President is at the threshold of repeating a similar feat. As commentators have been saying, the system was designed by the Founding Fathers to fend-off "democracy of the rowdy and uncontrollable masses." Coming to think of it, it may also have been designed to lend a helping hand to ambitious sons of ex-US Presidents. Sidi Sanneh $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ The ever-prescient VP for Programs Tom Melia forsaw some of the pesky problems the country now faces when he wrote the following pre-election op-ed on October 30 for his local paper in West Virginia. Now EVERYBODY is talking about it, but Tom was ahead of the curve!. FYI. Commentary: Let's Junk the Electoral College Whoever wins the popular vote should take office By Thomas O.Melia Charleston [West Virginia] Daily Mail, October 30, 2000 The man sworn in as the 42nd president of the United States next January may very well not be the candidate who wins the most votes on Nov. 7 -- thanks to an 18th century safeguard against popular democracy known as the Electoral College. Combined with the likelihood of razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate, the closeness of the forthcoming elections could lead directly to our first constitutional crisis of the 21st century. The prospect is more than hypothetical. As Election Day approaches, polls suggest not only that the presidential race is a dead heat nationally, but also that a number of individual states -- including West Virginia -- are toss-ups. Either candidate, it appears, could receive the larger number of popular votes nationwide and still see the other candidate win in the Electoral College. Under our Constitution, voters cast their ballot for 'electors' pledged to support the indicated candidate when the real election occurs in December. Each state has electors equal to the number of senators and representatives (and the District of Columbia gets three anyway). Democracy purists say we should cut out the middlemen and middle women and permit citizens to vote directly for president, and of course they are right. It is past time to eliminate the Electoral College -- a system that adds no value to the process and carries only the prospect of an indefensible result. It is no longer sufficient to try to explain away this quirk in our system by noting the Founding Fathers' anxieties about poor choices ordinary voters might make. Two hundred and twenty-three years on, we have evolved in so many ways to become a more genuinely democratic nation. Why not in this? The most egregiously undemocratic aspect of the Electoral College system is the winner-take-all provision. Whoever wins the most votes in each state, even a modest plurality, gets all the electors from that state. This means that a handful of well-placed wins in large states, no matter how narrow, can add up to Electoral College victory, even if the voters nationwide prefer the other guy. Consider the consequence for our embattled, distrusted political system if the candidate who wins the most votes does not become president. Sure, it would be legal -- constitutional, even. But would it be right? Would it seem right if the silver medalist were awarded the White House? Every schoolchild in America would know that something is amiss. Citizens of other countries would wonder why the world's strongest democracy protects the most important office in the land from the popular vote. Our nation's credibility as a promoter of democracy worldwide could be severely undermined. Talk radio, conspiracy websites and late night TV would likely pounce on such an incongruous result as proof that voting is a waste of time, even that the system is somehow rigged. Three times in the 19th century, the person with the most votes did not become president. When no candidate secured an Electoral College majority in the four-way race of 1824, the House of Representatives decided in favor of second-place finisher John Quincy Adams. In 1876, when 83 percent of those eligible officially voted (the most ever), Democrat Samuel Tilden probably received 250,000 votes more than Republican Rutherford B.Hayes. Bipartisan skullduggery in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon led to the appointment of a special commission of senators, representatives and Supreme Court justices to resolve disputes. The panel worked on strictly partisan lines and determined that Hayes won the Electoral College by a single vote. Democrats boycotted his inauguration and for a time referred to the new chief executive as "Rutherfraud B. Hayes" and "his Fraudulency." Incumbent President Grover Cleveland won a plurality of the nationwide vote in his 1888 bid for re-election, yet was turned out of office due to the arithmetic of the Electoral College. The issue then, however, was merely patronage; the lucre conspicuously associated with government positions was the prime motivator for many in politics. These days, folks take their politics way more seriously. The fireworks over Pennsylvania Avenue would likely be spectacular. For the kind of Congress most likely to challenge the political legitimacy of an "Electoral College president" is precisely the kind we are most likely to see after next month's election -- one very narrowly controlled by one party or the other. This tends to enhance partisanship in any legislature. Imagine the potential for obstructionism inherent in a House of Representatives (or Senate) whose slim majority arrives on the meager coattails of a presidential candidate who wins the most votes - and loses the election. The Gingrich-Clinton battles after 1994 would pale in comparison. The next campaign would be launched before Inauguration Day, and with gusto. What do Al Gore and George W. Bush think about this constitutional anachronism? If either should prevail in the popular vote, and fail in the Electoral College, how would they persuade their party colleagues in Congress to respect and cooperate with the victor? Would either candidate be prepared now to propose an amendment to update and democratize the Constitution? _____________________________________________- _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------