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                                             “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

Mark Twain

The word “elect” – c. 1300, eleccioun, Anglo-French “tact of choosing” someone to occupy a position, elevation to office” (whether by one person or a body of electors. Etymology on line informs that candidate is from the Latin candidatus “one aspiring to office,” originally “white-robed,” White was the usual color of the Roman toga, but office-seekers in ancient Rome, as well as fraternity members in the movie Animal House, wore a gleaming white toga, probably whitened with fine powdered chalk, presumably to indicate the purity of their intentions in seeking a role in civic affairs.

An election is the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. Were that it was so simple.

Around 508 B.C, the Greeks implemented the earliest form of democracy.  They had a “negative” election — that is, each year voters were asked to vote for the political leader or “candidates” they most wanted to be exiled for the next ten years. The early ballot system was voters wrote their choice on broken pieces of pots, ostraka in Greek, and from this name comes our word to ostracize. If any “candidate” received more than 6,000 votes, then the one with the largest number was exiled. If no politician received 6,000 votes, then they all remained. Since voters were only male landowners, the number of voters was small. If there was a fairly even spread of votes, no one would be exiled, so usually only very unpopular political leaders were ostracized or exiled. The Greeks were definitely on to something here.  Wouldn’t this be fun in this day and age?

  During the 13th century, Venice elected a Great Council comprised of 40 members. The Venetians implemented “approval voting.” In this type of election, electors cast one vote for every candidate they found acceptable and none for those they found unacceptable. The winner was the person who was acceptable to the largest number of voters. 

  Meanwhile, in England, in 1275 King Edward I called a meeting of Parliament (parler was Norman French for talk) as well as his tenants-in-chief. Edward invited representatives from every shire (including Bilbo Baggins and Frodo), and town in England. These men were elected as representatives by the people living in the locality. When the representatives arrived, they met in five different groups: (1) the prelates (bishops and abbots); (2) the magnates (earls and barons); (3) the inferior clergy; (4) the knights from the shires; (5) the citizens from the towns.  After this date, whenever the king needed money, he called another Parliament. And since Edward was constantly involved in wars and building castles, he needed a lot of money.  In 1430 an Act of Parliament divided constituencies (voting districts) into two groups: counties and boroughs. Note that the need for money before and after elections has been a recurring theme throughout history.

The US Presidential Election of 1789 was the first presidential election to take place after the ratification of the United States Constitution. Held on February 4, 1789, it resulted in the unanimous election of George Washington as the first President of the United States, with John Adams elected as the first vice president. This election and other early elections differed from modern-day presidential elections in the U.S. as candidates did not campaign for office.   Outward displays of political ambition were viewed with suspicion by the public. So ambitious politicians discreetly made their interests known while their allies publicly lobbied for them a precursor to the curse of political commercials that inundate us annually.  Additionally, there were not yet any formal political parties, although the divide between Federalists and Republicans became wide during Washington’s second term. Presidential and vice-presidential candidates did not run on a shared ticket. Instead, the candidate who received the most votes from the Electoral College became president, while the runner-up became vice president. Finally, the president was chosen by electors – who were themselves selected by each state through various methods – who were each allowed to cast two votes. Washington, after his unanimous election, travelled to the temporary US capital of New York City, where he was inaugurated on April 30,1889.

When you vote for president, you’re technically voting for an elector to cast an electoral vote for you.

Here in the U.S, we have our national elections on a Tuesday.  Why?  Glad you asked. Originally, election days varied by state, but Congress passed the Presidential Election Day Act, which was adopted on January 23, 1845, to set a single election day for the entire country and combat voting fraud created when different states held their elections on different days. In 1844, for example, voting occurred in different states from November 1 through December 4. As a result, people called “floaters” were able to cross state boundaries to vote in another state after voting in their own state.  In the election of 1844, Democrat James K. Polk (underrated and an excellent President) barely defeated Whig Henry Clay.  Initially the law applied only to presidential elections, but later, in 1872, it extended to congressional elections as well and then to the senate in 1914.

In 1845 the United States was still a largely agrarian society. Farmers made up most of the labor force. Early November was a good time to vote because the harvest was over, but the weather was still optimistically mild and sprained wrists from excessive cow milkings had healed.  Some days of the week were better than others.  Two days were definitely out. Sunday was a day of rest and worship. Wednesday in many areas was a market day, when farmers sold their goods in town. Transportation was problematic so a travel day was sometimes required. If people couldn’t use Sunday or Wednesday as their travel day, then that meant election day couldn’t be on Monday or Thursday, either. Tuesday was perceived as the best option. Election Day was specified as the Tuesday “after the first Monday” to prevent it from falling on November 1, All Saints Day.

Article II of the Constitution established the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a system put into place by our founding fathers as part of the Constitution. It is not a place. There is no Electoral College campus or football team. Of note is that the words ‘Electoral College’ do not appear in the Constitution. It simply refers to “electors.” The phrase “Electoral College” did not emerge in federal law until 1845. The fledgling government set up a system of electors who would act as the representatives for the voters in each state. The electors cast the final vote for the country’s president. There are a total of 538 total electors in the Electoral College. Each state gets an elector for each representative they have in Congress — two senators from each state, plus every House member who are allocated based on state population. No state would have fewer than three electors, no matter how few people lived there. Tied with 3 each are, Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia …..which isn’t even a state, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.  Moose and buffalo do not count as voters in Alaska and Wyoming.  It was one of the great compromises of the Constitutional Convention. The delegates to the Convention couldn’t agree on a method to elect a chief executive, which was a new concept in 1787. James Wilson, James Madison, John Dickinson, Roger Sherman and Gouverneur Morris worked out the details.

Ours is known as an indirect popular election, designed in part, to help states with a smaller population know that their voices were equally valued compared to larger states with more people. The magic number for any presidential candidate is 270 electors to win the election. These are the numbers every babbling talking head beats to death throughout election night and into the days that follow. It’s a simple majority: divide the 538 total electors by two, then add one for the majority. Most states have a winner take all policy. If the candidate wins the overall popular vote in the state, he or she wins all of that state’s electoral votes. There are two exceptions to this rule: Maine and Nebraska. These states allocate two electoral votes for the state’s winner of the popular vote, plus one electoral vote for the winner of the popular vote in each Congressional district. The winner-take-all system means that it doesn’t matter if a candidate wins a commanding lead in a state or just barely squeaks into the majority like Henry Clay defeating Andrew Jackson by just 4 votes in Maryland in the 1832 election or Democrat Woodrow Wilson defeating Republican Charles Evans Hughes by 56 votes in New Hampshire during the election of 1916. That candidate gets all of the electoral votes for the state regardless — which is how we’ve ended up with candidates who won the Electoral College but not the popular vote.  Five times in our history, a candidate has won the popular vote and lost in the Electoral College.

1824: Andrew Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams.

1876: Samuel Tilden lost to Rutherford B. Hayes.

1888: Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison.

2000: Al Gore lost to George W. Bush.

2016: Hilary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

The Constitution granted states the power to establish standards for voting rights. As a result, mostly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males, who owned property and were older than 21 were the only group allowed to vote. On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, granting Black men the right to vote and congress the power to enforce that right. However, laws, including poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses, were enacted in mostly Southern states, suppressing Black voting rights until 1965. August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granted American women the right to vote

When a Candidate Reaches 270 Electoral Votes, that it.  The election is over Right? Well not quite. After every single voter’s ballot, hanging chads and all is counted, the presidential election is still not officially over. That doesn’t happen until the electors cast their ballots, which will happen this year on Dec. 14. The Constitution mandates that “on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States.” The Electoral College ensures that that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the President of the United States.

 On rare occasions, electors do not vote as pledged. The Constitution and federal law do not require electors to abide by the results of the popular vote in their states, so we occasionally have” faithless electors” who go rogue and cast ballots for candidates other than the one to whom they are pledged. Thirty-three states require electors to cast their votes as pledged.  No “faithless elector” has ever been prosecuted. There have been more than 150 faithless electors since 1789 for various reasons. Have Faithless Electors ever changed an Electoral College election? No.  In 1872, 66 electors cast votes for Horace Greeley, the Democratic candidate opposing incumbent Ulysses S. Grant.  The problem was Mr. Greeley was quite dead, having expired immediately after the election. Who can be an elector? That same Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says that current federal employees can’t be electors, specifically, a “Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”

Alexander Hamilton defended the Electoral College (Electors). “The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure,” he said in Federalist No. 68. “I venture somewhat further and hesitate not to affirm that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”

The December 12 meetings are held at the state capitols and in the District of Columbia.  Electors cast their votes and sign a form confirming they voted. That all goes into the Certificate of Vote. Once those documents go to the federal government, the Office of the Federal Register confirms the votes and then they are read out in Congress in early January.

The concept of electors was not new.  From the Middle Ages until 1792, leaders of the Holy Roman Empire were elected by a college of prince-electors from various German states.

 What were some of the other ideas for picking a President?  At least four methods were proposed: election by Congress, election by state governors, election by state legislatures, and direct election by voters. Also rejected were a Spelling Bee, an apple pie bake-off or an arm-wrestling contest, 2 out of 3 wins. 

There you have it and now you are eligible for your degree in Electoral College Applied Mathematics.

People in other countries get to vote too. In fact, 10 other countries have an Electoral College. In Vatican City, yes The Vatican, the Pope is elected, by the College of Cardinals, an international group of church leaders who were appointed by a previous Pope. Myanmar has a complicated system in which three presidential candidates are chosen by the Presidential Electoral College, which consists of members of the lower and upper houses of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, or Assembly of the Union and members of the nation’s military.  Emphasis on military.  Speaking of complicated, Estonia has a system even more complicated than ours with the Parliament voting on presidential candidates. If none of them manage to secure two-thirds of the vote after three rounds, the electoral college consisting of both members of Parliament and local council members chooses between the two candidates who got the highest number of votes. Whew! Meanwhile, in Burundi there is an electoral system to elect representatives to its Inama Nkenguzamateka, or Senate. India chooses the president and vice-president indirectly through an electoral college consisting of members of both houses of the Indian Parliament. Not to be outdone by India, rival Pakistan has a president who is selected by an electoral college, consisting of members of the Senate, National Assembly and provincial assemblies. Off the coast of Africa, Madagascar uses an electoral college of municipal, communal, regional and provincial leaders to pick 42 of the 63 members of its Antenimieran-Doholona, or Senate.

 In mountainous Nepal 56 of the 59 members of its National Assembly are elected by an electoral college of state and municipal government leaders and people who climbed Mount Everest. In the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago, has a president picked by an electoral college of selected Senate and House of Representatives members. And lastly, way out in the Pacific in Vanuatu, the island’s president is elected by an electoral college consisting of Parliament and presidents of the nation’s six provinces and the winner of Survivor.  

Voter registration is compulsory in more than half of world that conducts elections.  In Argentina, Chile, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands for example, voter registration is automatic which is an enormous benefit to the chronically lazy.  It is based on government records such as census counts. In other cases, qualified residents are required to register themselves. Failing to register is punishable by a fine in some places, including New Zealand, Tonga and the United Kingdom. It appears that the most convenient system, online voting is working very well in Estonia. Since 2005, the country has collected the ballots online by way of a national ID card. The cards, which are embedded with unique chips and PIN codes, were already in use to do things like pay taxes, transportation fares and writing Amazon product reviews.

Twenty-Five countries in Africa have tried switching to a fingerprint system. It’s known as biometric voting, and it’s designed to identify voters by fingerprint pattern in order to prevent fraud. Things did not go well.  Just look at the African governments.  A seemingly good idea can, surprise, go very wrong.  In Ghana, the system fell apart halfway through their election day. The fingerprint reading kits failed, forcing the government to extend the election for a second day. In Kenya, laptops ran out of battery power only an hour into voting, forcing the results to be delayed almost a week. This reminds us to never let a machine know you are in a hurry.  Don’t lose your marbles in Gambia, as the democratic voting process comes in the shape of a little glass marble. Citizens cast their vote by rolling a marble down an iron chute representing their choice candidate. Cast beads hit a bell inside the drum. This is the “pinball machine” voting method. It probably lights up and dings too.  In 2000, Brazil became the first country to have elections completely electronically. More about that later. They modelled their new machines to look like easy-to-use telephone booths, The good old pen and paper ballot hasn’t gone away though. Paper ballots have their advantages — they’re easy to use, cheaper, hard to hack, and not reliant on energy sources. Plus, they can be recounted — a simple fact that does much to put voters at ease.

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” —Joseph Stalin

Would that the New Zealand model for election day be spread worldwide.  On election day in the land next to the land down under, election advertising is banned, candidates’ social media pages are pulled down, and talking heads on TV can’t give away any information on exit polls, projections, or even what a candidate is wearing, not even a rhinoceros costume…….see Sao Paolo, Brazil below…….  New Zealand’s Election Commission has rigorous rules that no outlet may broadcast “any words or images likely to influence voters” before the time the polls close. The fines for breaking these rules can be up to tens of thousands of dollars plus no New Zealand meat pie for six months.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected. —Henry Cate, VII

In Russia, you can vote for anyone on the ballot as long as it is Vladimir Putin.  If you vote for anyone else, you will go to prison and commit suicide by stabbing yourself in the back. In China, you must vote for candidates of the Communist Party.  If you vote for anyone else, you will go to prison and Vladimir Putin will stab you. Unexpectedly, the loony, barking mad dictatorship North Korea does actually have elections… these are, surprise, corrupt and repressive. Parliamentary elections are held every five years to elect the Supreme People’s Assembly – but each district has only one candidate, who is personally selected by Kim Jong Un, and voters who wish to dissent must do so in public, using a special ballot box. This ensures nobody actually dissents……and lives.

Open elections, on the other hand, can be problematic such as when Brazilians elected a Rhinoceros (“Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, I’ll stare at something less prepoceros”. …..Ogden Nash)  to the Sao Paolo City Council . While numerous animals and objects have been run in elections around the world as a joke or to make a statement through the years, the people of Sao Paolo, Brazil were seriously fed up with corruption and graft on their city council. In protest, they elected Cacareco, a rhinoceros residing at the Sao Paolo Zoo. He received 100,000 votes, far more than for any human candidate. A “Cacareco Vote” is still used as a term to mean protest vote in Brazil. On September 13, 1938, Boston Curtis became the new Republican precinct committeeman for the town of Milton, Washington. Curtis happened to be a mule. The deed had been arranged by Democrat Milton Mayor Kenneth Simmons. He wanted to make Republicans look foolish and show that the average voter had no idea who he was supporting. Lastly, in Africa, we turn to Liberia. Miraculously, in 1927, Charles D.B. King won re-election to the presidency with 234,000 votes. That’s pretty good since Liberia only had 15,000 registered voters at the time.

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”……Winston Churchill.

Sources:

https://people.howstuffworks.com/10-countries-besides-us-have-electoral-colleges.htm

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/history

https://www.usa.gov/electoral-college

https://www.britannica.com/topic/electoral-college