ELECTION DAY: We’ve been calling Barack Obama the president-elect
for a month or so now, but technically that’s not quite correct. That’s
because he won’t really be voted in until Monday.
That’s when the Electoral College meets, in state capitals across the nation. The electors who were chosen by voters in November (and here you thought you voted directly for a candidate!) will cast state votes and Obama presumably will be headed toward his Inauguration.
Those votes will be cast even in the states, such as New York, that were largely ignored by the candidates because it made no sense to waste time and money in places already safely decided. According to the electoral research group FairVote, 98 percent of presidential or vice presidential candidate events were held in just 15 states, and 57 percent were held in the pivotal states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Oh, Barack and Johnnie, we hardly knew ye.
That’s when the Electoral College meets, in state capitals across the nation. The electors who were chosen by voters in November (and here you thought you voted directly for a candidate!) will cast state votes and Obama presumably will be headed toward his Inauguration.
Those votes will be cast even in the states, such as New York, that were largely ignored by the candidates because it made no sense to waste time and money in places already safely decided. According to the electoral research group FairVote, 98 percent of presidential or vice presidential candidate events were held in just 15 states, and 57 percent were held in the pivotal states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Oh, Barack and Johnnie, we hardly knew ye.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.