Fraternity-Testvériség, 1964 (42. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1964-09-01 / 9. szám
FRATERNITY 9 CENTRAL FEATURE NEWS: HOW WE ELECT A PRESIDENT This much is certain — no matter who wins the Presidential election on November 3, the political cycle of finding the next tenant of the White House will begin almost the morning after. Party factions will regroup, newly-consituted national committees of the major parties will analyze mistakes and begin to seek funds, “booms” and “boomlets” will be set aloft, and the political drama which will culminate in the national conventions and Presidential election of 1968 will begin to unfold. This year, an estimated 100 million Americans are eligible to vote, and about 70 million will do so — according to Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia. They will be participating in an intricate exercise in government, which is neither pure democracy nor pure Consitutional law, but a combination of both. They were witnesses to party nominating conventions that combined extravaganza, tedium — and, occasionally, true suspense. They will cast votes that will not be “official” until an institution called the Electoral College tallies them a month later. Barry M. Goldwater and Lyndon B. Johnson are campaigning today for popular votes that must be translated into the minimum of 270 Electoral Votes required for victory. They — through the voters — will be competing within the framework of an Electoral College devised by the framers of the Constitution to avoid what they feared would be “the tumult and disorder” of a direct election by a population scattered thinly over widely dispersed states and not always able to adequately inform themselves on the qualifications of candidates. They will be participating in a complex election ritual which some historians believe is outdated and a violation of democratic principles, but which the major parties defend because the present system makes the individual states (and their party machineries) a weightier factor in the election’s outcome. They will become part of the sometimes erratic history of the Electoral College, which has twice resulted in the candidate with fewer popular votes winning a majority in the Electoral College. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes beat Samuel J. Tilden by one electoral vote, although trailing him — 4,033,768 to 4,285,992 — in the popular vote. Again, in 1888, Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland in the Electoral College (133 to 168), although Cleveland rolled up more than 100,000 additional popular votes. Compton’s points out that the Electoral College is a group of electors chosen in each state for the sole purpose of electing the President and Vice-President. Each party nominates its own slate of Presidential electors for each state. These electors are pledged to vote for their party’s candidates, if they win the general election in their state. The Presidential electors are within their constitutional rights in voting for whomever they please, but rarely do they break the pledge to party and voters.
