FROM MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
A STOLEN DEMOCRACY #481
Column Written 11/10/2000
Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A. All Rights Reserved
I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a President and I think I'll go along with them. -- Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
30th U.S. President Americans, by the millions, went to their polling places, to participate in the political process. Notice, it was not said that they voted to elect a President, for they did not do so. People voted for electors, a mysterious bunch of virtually unknown political appointees, who will sit in state capitals and decide who will be the President and Vice-President of the United States. It is here that the Electoral College comes into play, a group of 538 people who will vote for who they want to be president. It matters not who millions of Americans thought they were voting for. The Electoral College votes for whomever they want, and their choice becomes the law. Indeed, according to broadcast and media reports, the Democratic Party candidate received a majority of the popular vote, and it appears the Republican candidate received more electoral votes. If that figure is affirmed and certified, then guess who gets sworn in in January, 2001? What kind of democracy is that? What it is, is American democracy. Who really cares if some 19,000 West Palm Beach registered voters had their ballots tossed out? One political spokesman, asked to comment on the possible disenfranchisement of over 19,000 voters, Haitians, Jews and African-Americans among them, replied, "Tough." That is American democracy. The nation that looks down its aquiline nose to Haiti, that lectures Nigeria on democracy, and spits on Cuba while boasting of the "free vote," is a democracy of thieves. So much for the lie that "every vote counts." Perhaps it should be said that every vote counted counts, eh? American history is not one of democracy, but of undemocracy, as women, Africans, Indians, and poor, unpropertied white men spent most of the nation's existence unable to vote. When mass protests forced laws opening up the vote, new means were found to suppress the vote of so-called "outsiders." The Electoral College is an institution constructed to protect the rulers from too much democracy by the ruled. It is to protect the powerful from the people. It is an institution that is profoundly undemocratic. In 1824, 1876, 1888, and now in 2000 the man who won the most popular votes lost the Electoral College tally, and thus the election. That's American history. That's American tradition. That's American democracy.
İMAJ 2000