Decision time has arrived.
Today, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will take a back seat to citizens’ popular votes and the Electoral College decision – which are predicted to be uncomfortably close.
Some people are comparing this election to the 2000 election between President George Bush and then Vice President Al Gore.
Gore won the popular vote by just over 500,000 votes, but Bush won the Electoral College by five out of 537 votes.
Bush won the election.
Now, in 2012, people are wondering if this could happen again during this presidential election.
Rob Mellen, Jr., Political Science and Public Administration Department assistant professor, said if a president were elected for the second time in 12 years who did not win the popular vote there would be more outcry from the politically knowledgeable.
“We didn’t hear a lot about it in 2000 because it’s become a relatively accepted thing in American politics and our system that the Electoral College decides presidents,” Mellen said.
Four presidents who failed to win the popular vote have been elected to the office.
Karen Tumulty for The Washington Postsaid in an article no current president seeking re-election has ever won the Electoral College and lost the popular vote.
“A win in the Electoral College that is not accompanied by one in the popular vote casts a shadow over the president and his ability to govern,” she said in an article.
For example, Bush had to fight for approval of the Democratic Party in D.C. and around the country in the beginning of his first term.
If this election ends in the same manner as the 2000 election, the worth of the popular vote may decrease.
“Voting is a central element in our democracy. Brave men and women over the centuries have fought for the right for every individual to have a say in what their government looks like,” Mellen said. “If you choose not to vote, you are choosing not to have a say in the people who lead your country and your state and your city and town. You are basically choosing to say, ‘I don’t care.'”
The largest voter turnout in presidential election history was in 2008, an election when President Obama won both the popular vote and Electoral College. In the current election, some are worried the popular vote will no longer matter and influence election results.
Mellen said amendments can be made to the Constitution to change the voting process and the worth of votes cast by American citizens.
“We could pressure our state officials to call for a constitutional convention. The Constitution can be amended by three-fourths of the states calling for a constitutional convention, which would mean 38 states,” Mellen said. “Now, that’s a bold and dangerous step to take because the last time the states did that, they threw out the Articles of the Confederation and wrote a brand new constitution.”
The founding fathers faced the problem of a fair election process for the early nation’s president.
According to the United States Electoral College, the Electoral College was created by the founding fathers as an agreement between the election of a president by popular vote and by Congress without giving Congress majority of the power.
Each state has a certain number of electoral votes based on population. Electoral votes tend to correlate with the state’s political party preference.
A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to win the election.
“It may not matter here in Mississippi that much, it may not matter in Massachusetts that much, but if you’re in some of those swing states – Florida, Virginia, Ohio – it’s going to matter a lot that people are going to get out and vote,” Mellen said.