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Friday, October 26, 1984
Ron’s Words
Who really elects presidents?
By Ronnie Hopkins
The Electoral College has no students, no dormitories, classrooms or football teams. It offers
no degrees.
It is, in fact, one of the least understood fixtures of the Constitution, created by our founding
fathers because they didn’t trust the American public to select a president by direct popular
vote.
It is the Electoral College, not the American voter, who will directly elect our president for
the next four years.
Originally, the Electoral College was adopted as a compromise to ensure that smaller states in
the federal system would have some muscle in presidential elections.
Currently, there are 538 seats in the Electoral College, which was esablished at the 1787 Con
stitutional Convention and has been used to elect every president since George Washington.
Under the electoral system, each state is alloted an elector for each of its members in the
House of Representatives, which is apportioned according to population. And to give those
small states a chance, each state also receives an elector for each senator.
Candidates for elector are nominated by state party convention, primary election, or caucus.
Often, they are party functionaries or former government officials. The only requirement is
that they be U.S. citizens not currently holding general office.
Every state except Maine chooses it electors on a winner-take-all basis. For instance, the can
didate who carries North Carolina will receive all of its electoral votes, though he may have won
the state by only one popular vote.
However, in Maine, the winner in each of the state’s two congressional districts gets one elec
tor ^nd the statewide winner receives the rest.
One Dec. 17, the electors will meet in their respective state capitals and cast two votes, one for
president and one for vice president. Ballots will be collected and sent to Washington, where
they will be counted and the official winners formally announced in a joint session of Congress
on Jan. 7. If there is an electoral tie, then the House of Representatives elects the president.
It is thus possible or a presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election if
his opponent receives more electoral votes.
Jesse Jackson has canvassed a great portion of the U.S. encouraging blacks, low income
whites, and other minorities to vote. If his efforts result in the Mondale/Ferraro ticket winning
the popular vote, he could still find his candidates outvoted in the Electoral College, if the
Sec ELECTORAL, p. 4
Chambers
Continued from page 1
trustee of NCCU was in effect a matter of
minutes.
By 1972, many celebrated law firms would
almost certainly have delighted to list the
credentials of Julius LeVonne Chambers on
their letterhead, (B.A., M.A., J.D., LL, M.,
LL.D.). There were predictions of political
and judicial appointments.
But for ten years. Chambers kept his
pledge of commitment to civil rights. As a
private practitioner in Charlotte, he had led
the plaintiffs’ case in the landmark school
desegregation case, Swann v. Board of
Education. He was senior partner in his own
taw firm, a firm celebrated for its commit
ment to civil rights.
Chambers was elected in 1975 to the
presidency of the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc., and soon after
ward resigned from the UNC Board of
Governors, declaring his dissatisfaction with
the system’s commitment to desegration.
(Nevertheless, he was honored in 1983 with
the Distinguished Alumni Award of the
system’s “flagship” institution, UNC at
Chapel Hill.)
This year he left his law partnership to
assume the role of chief executive of the
Legal Defense Fund, Director-Counsel.
Chambers’ speech at Founder’s Day is
part of the celebration commemorating Dr.
James E. Shepard, who founded NCCU in
July, 1910.
ISA initiates
40 members
By Obirieze Ugo
Forty new students were in
itiated into the International
Student Association on Satur
day, Sept. 29.
The ceremony in the Alfon
so Elder Student Union
Lounge also marked the
1984-85 administration under
tl^e leadership of Samuel
A^ye, ISA president.
Anye told both old and new
members to work together
with the spirit of oneness to
achieve their individual and
collective objectives.
Anye charged members to
strive for the quest of ex
cellence, which he said can on
ly be achieved through hard
work and commitment.
Alexzine Whitted, secretary
to the Foreign Student Ad
visor and Counseling Center,
reinterated Ayne’s statement
for excellence, calling both old
and new members to take an
active part in the organization.
Anye encouraged American
students to join the organiza
tion.
Later new member were
entertained at an all night par
ty.
Hoc Vote
Continued from page 1
get together and vote on one issue because the faculty seems to
believe that students are not always as competent as they are
when it comes to decison making.”
Sharon Allison agrees with Thomas, saying,“The students
and faculty will not vote the same way because there is a dif
ference in economic classes, viewpoints, and party affiliation.”
However, she believes that the majority will vote the same way
because of their black middle-class background.
While some looked at the problems of bloc voting, others
found advantages.
Karen Jarnagin approves of it as a means “for getting blacks
elected into offices.”
Letita Mason agreed with Jarnigan, saying, “Bloc voting
unites people under a particular issue and makes the politicans
and elected officials aware of different groups.”
But Sadie Jordan, a political science instructor at NCCU,
disagrees. “Bloc voting can have a negative slur when there is a
race o people or group of females that are voting along the same
line,” she said. “If a group is going to Woe vote an issue or a
candidate, it (may) become a disadvantage because the can
didate will not speak on important issues.” Instead, she argued,
candidates speak on party affiliations and what that group of
people wants to hear.
Eric Cramer, a senior, agrees with Jordan. “Certian groups
would have greater power than others,” he said, which could
lead to possible abuse of that power, destroying individuality
and encouraging apathy. “It’s too close to totalitarianism,”
concluded Cramer.
Rickie Bethea, a senior, stated that one disadvantage to bloc
voting is that the Democratic Party takes the black vote for
granted.
UNCpoU
Continued from page 1
Thad Beyle, a political science professor at the
UNC-CH, said Helms used the King issue in the last
debate as a code word for anti-black sentiments.
“There’s no question (that Helms is doing that),” he
said. “It’s a very racist approach. That’s the tie he
has with the voting population. There are a lot of
people who feel that way.”
Claude Allen, press secretary for the Helms for
Senate Committee, said that it is Hunt who is making
an issue of race and not Helms. “The issue is Hunt’s
integrity in running newspaper ads showing he
favored the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in black
newspapers only,” he said in a recent telephone inter
view. “He is using that issue to play on the emotions
of blacks to go the polls and vote against Sen.
Helms.”
Allen said Helms has not tried to hide his views on
the King Holiday. Unlike Hunt, he said. Helms has
ran .“ads in newspapers all across the state....”
’’There’s no question that Sen. Helms opposed the
Martin Luther King bill to Inflame racial sentiment,”
said Will Marshall, press secretary for the Jim Hunt
Committee. “The Governor called him on that very
well in the last debate.
“It’s a litte hypocritical and extreme to say Gov.
Hunt is making an issue of race in this campaign
when Helms has done that throughout his career.”
“It’s to his advantage to play up to blacks,” Allen
said. ”If you look at the Carolina Poll and the recent
News and Observer Poll, you’ll see that Hunt needs a
big minority turnout to win. That’s why he’s making
this such a racial issue.”
Marshall said that Helms treats the recent mass
voter registration by blacks as if it was “a threat to
society.” He quoted an article from the Wilson Daily
Times in which Helms said: “Jim Hunt needs an
enormous black vote to put him across. But if
enough of our people go to the polls it will be all
right.”
“Im sure he was speaking to, an all white audience
so when he said ‘our people,’ he meant white peo
ple,” he said.
Beyle said it was going to be very important for
Hunt to run a unified campagin. “He is going to
have to make sure his black vote comes out and that
Domocrats vote Democratic. This is one campaign in
which the undecided are very few.”
In the 1984 poll, only 8 percent of those surveyed
were undecided. This figure has decreased every year
since 1981 when it was 17 percent.
Beyle said the race was going to be very close
because most of the people who have voted for Hunt
and Helms in the past are the same voters. “They
have had the luxury of voting for a Democractic
governor and a Republican senator,” he said.
Although the polls show Hunt and Helms about
even, Beyle said if an election were held today, he
would “pick Helms (as the winner) because of
Reagan at the top of the (Republican) ticket.”
Winfred Cross was the 1981-82 editor of The Cam
pus Echa and continues to contribute to the paper.
He is currently a graduate student in the School of
Journalism at UNC-CH.