This is in fact the picture of the situation in the United States of America, but the decision will be decided after the election in November this year followed by votes by the electoral college as well. The electoral college consists of 538 electors while majority of 270 electoral votes decides the President. It is interesting to note that electors are selected by political parties either before the general election or during the general election, writes Mohammad Amjad Hossain.
The people of the United States of America are having a bad dream to have another four-year under President Donald Trump if he wins the presidential election through the electoral college system. According to an ABC news interview, of the 1002 total respondents to the poll, 94 percent were willing to provide an answer to the open-ended question regarding President Donald Trump. In fact, the ten most common words that represent President Donald Trump as given by respondents to the ABC news poll were: incompetent,arrogant,
In fact, the electoral college system appears to be an opportunistic and pseudo democratic system that has been imposed upon the masses by the constitution of the United States of America following twelve amendments.
Presidential election in the United States of America this year has become more complicated and uncertain than previous years as a result of highly contagious virus coronavirus- 19 which snatched away 216000 people which began its journey in February this year. As a result of this pandemic, the election has begun a bit early by postal ballot although votes will be counted on 4 November.
The electoral college system in the USA tends to give the impression of being undemocratic in nature. The system of the Electoral college has constantly been debated since the election of the 1800’s when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr of the Republican contesting for post of President and Vice-President respectively ended up in a tie with John Adams and Chales Pinckney of the Federalist party. In view of the deadlock the matter was referred to the House of Representatives for resolving as a part of contingency plan as mandated in the constitution. Here again the Republican voted for Thomas Jefferson while the Federalist cast votes in favor of Aron Burr, which resulted again in a deadlock. As the story goes, Alexander Hamilton of the Federalist Party had to intervene to save the deadlock in favor of Thomas Jefferson, who became the third President of the United states of America. Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the constitution of the United states of America while Alexander Hamilton was one the framers of the constitution of the United States of America who served as the first treasury secretary under President George Washington.
As a matter of fact, the people of the United States of America witnessed at the threshold of twenty first century debacles of popular votes. Al Gore, presidential candidate of the Democratic party won popular votes by a slim margin in the 2000 presidential election while George Bush of the Republican party claimed a win in electoral votes. Since the results were not decisive, representatives of the House voted to select the presidential candidate, while vote counting in the state of Florida was continuing as a result of a dispute of counting. Incidentally, the Governor of the state of Florida was Jeb Bush, who was the younger brother of George Bush. Therefore, the presidency went to the Speaker of the house. Dennis Hastert while the Supreme court saved the situation by awarding the presidency in favor of George Bush by 5 to 4 votes.
The current situation in the United States of America appears to be insecure as the country is being governed by President Doland Trump who is on record constantly telling lies as reflected in the book written by Associate Editor of the Washington Post Bob Woodward: Rage. President admitted that he has intentionally downplayed the situation of pandemic. Boston Globe editorially said that Trump knowingly misled the public about the coronavirus’ Still, there is something freshly nauseating to hear Trump’s own words on Woodward’s tape. As a matter of fact, the country is facing unemployment rates, mass evictions, police brutality against African -American in particular while reckoning with racism and many enterprises of the economy are in doldrum.
This being the situation in the country which is divided. A large number of Republican have sided with Democratic presidential nominee former Vice-President Joe Biden, including immediate past Governor of Ohio, who is Republican and Mrs. Cindy McCain, wife of Republican Senator who contested as Presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 2008 plus five-star General Colin Powel, Secretary of State under President Bush plus Anthony Scaramucci who served President Trump at white house as Communication Director who is reportedly called President as “crazy” while former HomeLand security chief of Staff Miles Taylor accused President of withholding disaster aid for blue states while four former Republican senators came out in support of Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, apart from a group of 73 former US National Security officials ,including former heads of CIA and FBI .
This is in fact the picture of the situation in the United States of America, but the decision will be decided after the election in November this year followed by votes by the electoral college as well. The electoral college consists of 538 electors while majority of 270 electoral votes decides the President. It is interesting to note that electors are selected by political parties either before the general election or during the general election.
As writer Andrew Busch pointed out, since 1797 over 700 constitutional amendments have been proposed in the Congress to alter or abolish the Electoral college, and opinion polls over the last more than fifty years or so have consistently shown a majority of Americans favoring alternatives like direct popular election. According to the Gallup poll after the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, 60 percent of voters preferred direct election for the president. There is apprehension in the United States of America that this year’s presidential election is likely to be torpedoed if President Donald Trump loses the election. According to write-up by Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times published on 15 September that Michael Caputo, the Assistant secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services claimed that Biden and the Democrat will try to seize power through election fraud while convicted felon Roger Stone is reported to urge the President to declare martial law and seize ballots.
These are highly irresponsible remarks and should be stopped by the President and his Republican Party as well. The people of the United States do not want to see unwanted situations.
As Republican attacks on the right to vote became more vicious than ever, Democratic National committee released a voter protection unit to fight voter suppression and safeguard democracy.
God bless the United states of America.
(Mohammad Amjad Hossain, retired diplomat from Bangladesh, and former President of Nova Toastmaster International club writes from Falls Church, Virginia, USA).
