Electoral College Declares Obama President-Elected

Despite a twenty minute delay in Colorado so that an alternative elector could be seated, the Electoral College convened across the United States and declared Barack Obama the President of the United States.

The Des Moines Register reports Governor Chet Culver saying the Electoral College system worked as it should, "If we were ever going to change it we would have done it over the last eight years," said Culver. "You have to give small states an opportunity to be relevant."

All of Iowa's seven electors are Democratic activists who were involved in the campaign early on and signed a formal document declaring their official support for Obama. "They got involved very early in the presidential selection process," said Culver. "Since the Democrats won, these seven electors get to cast their votes."

The Iowa City Press Citizen reports that Iowa's 2008 electors are:

• 1st District: Elwood Thompson, Waterloo.

• 2nd District: Slayton Thompson, Cedar Rapids.

• 3rd District: Kathleen O'Leary, Des Moines.

• 4th District: Jon Heitland, Iowa Falls.

• 5th District: Dennis Ryan, Onawa.

• At large: Joe Judge, Albia.

• At large: Audrey Linville, Davenport.

A gentle round of applause for these women and men.

Day of the Dead

From Bloomberg News

Republican presidential candidate John McCain goes into the campaign's final weekend a bigger underdog than any victorious candidate in a modern election.

With four days until Election Day, national polls show his Democratic rival Barack Obama leading by an average of 6 percentage points, and battleground polls show Obama ahead in more than enough states to win the decisive 270 Electoral College votes.

``This election is cooked and done, it's in the warming tray,'' said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

McCain ``is as desperate as a candidate can be,'' said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. ``Less than five days to go and McCain's trailing in half a dozen states of which he can't afford to lose any: Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina.''

Illinois Senator Obama yesterday highlighted new government figures showing the sharpest contraction of the economy since 2001, a harbinger of what could be the worst recession since 1981-82. Arizona Senator McCain, meanwhile, was mum on the latest economic news showing the gross domestic product shrank at a 0.3 percent pace from July to September.

Those latest figures, Sabato said, are ``the final nail in McCain's coffin.''

Being that is Halloween, I imagine the McCain/Palin ticket is counting on rising from the dead.

For a different view, check out the Moderate Voice blog.

Eliminating the Electoral College?

Why do we still have an electoral college? As we saw in 2000, the electoral college ignores the will of the people. Yet every time politicians say they'll get rid of it, it rarely happens.

As of today, only Maryland has agreed to deliver the state's 10 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote by law. On Sunday, New Jersey became the second state to enter a compact that would eliminate the Electoral College's power to choose a president if enough states endorse the idea.

If even a handful of states did this, it would, in effect, avoid letting a larger state decide the outcome of the election. For instance, in 2000, George Bush won the election with 271 electoral delegates to Al Gore's 266, despite Gore winning the popular vote by 542,000 votes. In this example, both Maryland and New Jersey were won by Gore and therefore would have had no impact on the election. However, if New Hampshire (where the popular vote was 273,559 for Bush and 266,348 for Gore), for example, had awarded its 4 delegates based on national popular vote, Gore would have won the election.

It's hard to imagine calling us the "United" States when clearly electing national leaders is anything but uniting.