The battle for America’s White House is practically won and lost, and the free world now knows its leader for the next four years, Joe Biden, a very present fixture of the Washington, DC., establishment in nearly five decades. His last duty post was as Vice President to Barack Obama, first Black president of America.
Something emblematic to this presidential election is the adrenaline, lubricant of American presidential races, pumped up by the media, as the vote is being counted. It ran through the exhilaratingly close race.
Those TV anchors and commentators sure know how to work up the crowd, revving up the emotions of Americans on both sides of the political divide, as they deftly dropped their money spinning commercials.
One commentator, a female, offered a very interesting, but graphic, imagery to describe the predicament of the Republican Party, which she said rented their platform, like a tuxedo, to President Donald Trump, who is returning it crumpled, with soup stains and cigarette burns.
More than 150 million Americans voted, the highest in American history. This is significant when you consider that Americans came out to exercise their civic right to vote despite the dark pall of an economy gone south, the #BlackLivesMatter protests and COVID-19 pandemic that cost America more than 237,000 deaths.
America was riven between Trump red neck nationalists, on the one hand, and on the other, Biden’s informal rainbow coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, pro abortionists, LGBTs, and poor whites suspected to be leftists who want to depend on welfare.
One interesting aspect of America’s presidential election is the role of electors, who reap the popular votes from across the states, and then, theoretically, choose the president on behalf of the states.
According to Article 2, known as The Executive Branch Note of The Constitution of America, “The President… shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and… Do hereby be elected as follows:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the Whole Number of Senators and Representatives, to which the state may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
Thus, the 538 members of the Electoral College are equal in number to the 100 Senators, (two from each of the 50 states of America), the 435 members representing the 50 states, and the three representing the District of Columbia, America’s Federal Capital Territory, in the House of Representatives.
But no one who is already elected into the American Congress as Senator, Congressman, nominee representing the District of Columbia, or otherwise employed by any arm of America’s Federal Government can be an elector.
Whichever candidate gets the simple majority of the popular votes in any state theoretically gets the entire number of electors in that state, save for Maine and Nebraska; it’s a winner-takes-all arrangement that leaves nothing for the loser.
A corollary to this is the principle of simple majority, whereby a candidate can only become America’s President if he receives the nod of at least 270 electors, just one vote above 269 that is half of 538, the total number of the electors.
The idea of the Electoral College is to ensure that each state has a voice in the process of choosing America’s President. It’s the same way only two senators are elected to represent each state regardless of their population.
Article II of The Articles of Confederation insists that “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”
You may remember that between 1776 and 1789, strident arguments led to the refusal of the states to donate their sovereignty to the centre and delay in adopting the Constitution that would transform the 13 Original Colonies into the United States of America.
That explains why America has no national electoral agency. Each state has its own agency and procedure for processing presidential election votes, because it’s entirely their business how they choose the electors, or delegates, who will express their choice of the President.
This historical reality assured smaller states, like Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, that their voices would be heard and respected, as those of bigger states, California, Texas and New York.
Erm, you must also recognise the racial dimension that rated every person of colour as three-fifth of a human being, a device to ensure that former slaves, with their high numbers, did not overwhelm their white “Massas” as was possible in the Deep South.
Though he lost the popular vote by a wide margin of five million votes, President Trump thought he would make up if he called for a halt to vote counting especially in states that he probably feared he would lose.
Among other pleas, he prayed America’s Supreme Court to overrule the decision of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court to allow mail-in ballots received after closing of voting, challenged observation of ballot processes in Nevada, and sought to halt Georgia State from counting votes in Savanah, a military base with significant absentee votes.
A Georgia court swiftly dismissed Trump’s superfluous prayers to disregard lawful absentee votes. Another in Pennsylvania dismissed allegation that the ballot of dead voters were counted. Nevada insisted on receiving and counting mail-in ballots till November 12, 2020, if postmarked November 3, 2020.
Members of the Trump family, including their patriarch, sent out a diarrhoea of tweets, asking prominent Republicans to speak in support of Trump’s call for a halt to counting of apparently legitimate votes.
Protesters, some reportedly armed, took to the voting centres, to heckle and intimidate volunteers counting the votes. Yet others are holding street parties, chanting McFadden and Whitehead’s song, “Ain’t no stopping the count. We’re on the move,” to encourage the volunteers to “Count them votes.”
Anyway, despite the dramatic tantrums of “Drama Queen” President Trump, the votes were counted and Biden, who Trump teases as “Sleepy Joe,” because of his slow drawl, won the oyster to become America’s 46th President.
Biden has more than 75 million votes and garnered 279 of the electors. He crossed the middle 270 to defeat President Trump, who got over 70 million votes, and 214 electors, even as vote counting continues in Georgia, which may go into a recount, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona, to determine who gets the outstanding electors.
Meanwhile, aides of President Trump, knowing the truth and the reality, keep mum. The more honest and audacious, like son-in-law Jared Kushner, suggested he should focus on a reelection bid in 2024.
But top Republicans, like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who hope to inherit Trump’s political family, are mouthing support for his failure to concede defeat despite what the numbers say.
It is remarkable that the American press is unfazed, and boldly takes on the President for misleading the people with unverified claims that some invisible forces are using concocted mail-in votes to defeat him.
But if Amrericans thought the election of Biden will end four years of a cantankerous presidency, no one can doubt Trump’s dream of making America great again.
Twitter @lekansote1
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