By Parwez Wahid
Mushtaque Ali Khan Mirza, a resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been selected as an Elector to the 2004 Electoral College to elect the President of the United States. Mr. Mirza, an environmental engineer by profession, is also a member of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee and has been active in local politics for over a decade. His selection to the Electoral College comes a few months after he was unsuccessful in his bid to become a member of the Democratic National Committee.
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The Electoral College system for electing the President of the United States is part of the original United States Constitution dating back to 1789. The Founding Fathers of America were confronted with the issue of how to devise a method for electing a President in a nation of 13 states with a population of about 4 million people spread across nearly 1000 miles. There were few communications and transportation links spanning this region; political parties and nation-wide campaigning was a concept for the future.
After dismissing several considerations (such as empowering the Congress to select the President) the Framers of the Constitution devised the Electoral College based on several classical institutions such as the selection of the Pope, and the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. This structure satisfied the Framers’ concerns on fairness and avoiding anarchy.
Under the Electoral College system every state is granted an elector for each member of its Congressional delegation, plus the state’s two seats in the Senate. Congressional seats are based on the size of a state’s population. The smallest states, like Delaware, have a minimum of 3 electors, while California, the largest state today, has 55 electors. The District of Columbia, though not a state, has been granted 3 electors. With 100 Senators, 435 members of Congress, plus the District of Columbia, the Electoral College is comprised of 538 Electors who cast the actual votes for the President of the United States. As such 270 Electoral Votes (half of 538 plus 1) are needed to win the Presidency.
In most states it is winner-take-all: the candidate who wins the state by popular vote claims all the Electoral Votes for that state. There are a couple of states, Maine being one of them, that distribute the Electoral Votes by districts. Due to the Electoral College system, a candidate need not win the popular vote to be elected President. This was the case in the 2000 elections where George W. Bush claimed less than 50% of the popular vote, but gained 271 Electoral Votes to win. Al Gore actually finished with 266 Electoral Votes as one of the Electors from the District of Columbia submitted a blank ballot. Had Gore won the State of New Hampshire and its four Electoral Votes, he would have been elected President.
Due to the Electoral College system, a candidate could claim just eleven key states and win the Presidency. By winning only: California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Georgia, a candidate would have enough Electoral Votes to win the Presidency and could ignore the other 39 states and District of Columbia. Several of these eleven states are among the “Battle Ground” states in the 2004 election.
When voters in Massachusetts vote for John Kerry on November 2nd, they are actually voting for the 12 Massachusetts Electors who have pledged to vote for John Kerry. This will include Mushtaque Mirza, the first Muslim from Massachusetts to serve on the Electoral College.