JEFFERSON CITY -- Eleven Democrats will gather here next month to elect the next president of the United States.
If you thought the task was completed Nov. 5 by more than 2 million Missouri voters, then you have forgotten your sixth-grade civics lesson about America's Electoral College.
The method of how to select the nation's leader was a troubling problem for the early constitutionalists, who were faced with two opposing views by colonial democrats and their opposition, the anti-democrats. After considerable debate, the first Congress settled on a compromise that permitted a popular vote that would be validated in a later vote by popularly chosen electors.
The early democrats favored a popular vote while the anti-democrats wanted electors to select a president using the voters' choice only as an advisory. The compromise, viewed by many as a concession to states' rights, called for a popular electoral vote, which would then be confirmed by electors who would be selected by rules adopted by state governments.
This compromise has continued to this day, despite concerns expressed that under unusual circumstances it could install a president who had a majority in the Electoral College -- operating under the rule of winner-take-all -- but who had failed to gain a plurality from registered voters.
Each state's electors cast ballots based on which candidate receives the most votes in the general election. States are entitled to electoral votes equal to their number of U.S. representatives and senators. In Missouri's case, the state casts 11 electoral votes -- the total of nine U.S. House and two U.S. Senate members.
Electors are chosen prior to general elections by each party's state committee. The names of Missouri's Democratic electors were forwarded to the secretary of state's office by the State Democratic Committee on Sept. 27.
When Missouri's Democratic electors gather at the Capitol here on Dec. 16, the meeting will be presided over by Gov. Mel Carnahan, with Secretary of State Bekki Cook on hand to certify the state's 11 votes for transmission to the president pro tem of the U.S. Senate. The final national tally provides the official certification of the election of William Jefferson Clinton as president and Albert Gore Jr. as vice president.
In addition to the certification signatures of the two statewide officials, all of Missouri's 11 electors will sign the official writ of election.
One elector is chosen from each of the state's nine congressional districts, and two are chosen at large. Had Bob Dole won a majority of the votes cast in Missouri Nov. 5, Republican electors would be convening here next month.
The Democratic electors: 1st District: Gregory Carter, St. Louis; 2nd district: Carole Gambino, Florissant; 3rd District, Linda Schilly, Crystal City; 4th District: Willard Reine, Jefferson City; 5th District, Virgil Troutwine, Independence; 6th District: Bob Staton, Chillicothe; 7th District: Steve Stepp, Springfield; 8th District: Shirla Howard, Dexter; 9th District: H.E. Davis, Wentzville; Elector-at-Large: Nancy Reynolds, Wentzville; Elector-at-Large: Robert Wheeler, Keytesville.
State statutes govern the selection process and virtually all, including Missouri's, mandate that electors cast their ballots based on the popular-vote winner. But slip-ups have occurred. One of the 72 electors won by Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 election cast his ballot for a non-candidate, while 14 electors in the Kennedy-Nixon election in 1960 went unpledged as a result of a continuing canvass of the state's popular vote. Kennedy had 300 electoral voters, 30 more than the 270 needed, even without the unpledged ballots.
Election officials in the secretary of state's office say their official canvass and certification of the Nov. 5 vote will be completed before electors gather here Dec. 16. Until the state officially certifies the popular vote, no candidate can legally lay claim to being elected, and between Election Day and official certification, he or she is legally considered only a claimant to public office.
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