The rite playing in state capitols involved party luminaries and tireless activists carrying out the will of each state's voters. The popular vote from state-to-state dictates whether Democratic or Republican electors get the honor, but the outcome wasn't in doubt. Obama had well more than the 270 votes required to win the White House.
Obama was on course to get 332 votes to Republican Mitt Romney's 206, barring defectors known as "faithless electors." California's 55 electoral votes - the largest cache in any state - helped put the Democratic president over the top by Monday evening. Electors also were affirming Joe Biden for another term as vice president.
In New Hampshire, electors supporting Obama signed their four ballots and then certificates that were sealed in envelopes with wax that has been in the secretary of state's office for more than 70 years.
"It's been a long haul for all of us," said state Secretary of State Bill Gardner, alluding to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary that sparked intense campaigning there for more than a year.
In a rotunda decked out for the holidays in St. Paul, Minnesota's 10 electors called out the name "Barack Obama" one after another in an exercise meant to avoid a miscue that left the state with an accidental faithless elector in 2004. Former legislator Al Patton, who was also an elector four years ago, acknowledged the historical magnitude was less than in 2008 when Obama was elected the nation's first black president. But Patton said he was still honored to be involved.
Vermont's meeting of three electors was witnessed by a fifth-grade class.
Connecticut's electors convened in the state Senate chamber and solemnly remembered the victims of last week's school shooting before carrying out their task.
The certified tally sheets are on their way to Washington, where Congress will officially count them on Jan. 6. Obama is to be sworn in a couple of weeks later.
The 12th Amendment directs the electors chosen by the states to meet and vote for president and vice president. Each state gets its equivalent in the 435-member House and the 100-member Senate. The District of Columbia gets the other three electors.
With the Electoral College in focus, advocates for revamping the current system seized on the chance to argue for a change guaranteeing the national popular vote winner is elected president. The compact among states would award future electoral votes to the national vote leader regardless of how candidates perform in a particular state. The shift has been approved in nine places and is pending in many others, but it won't take effect unless states possessing a majority of electoral votes ratify it.
Source: http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/articlepath.aspx?articleid=20121218_13_A4_ULNSbO294950&rss_lnk=16
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