OBAMA HATERS IN LAST DITCH EFFORT TO DERAIL HIS PRESIDENCY

By KEVIN J KELLEY in New York
November 29 2008

Barack Obama’s most unyielding detractors have launched a last-gasp effort to deny him the US presidency by reviving the discredited claim that he was born in Kenya.

This small contingent of conservative activists is focusing on the Electoral College, the body that actually selects a US president. Its 538 members are to meet in their respective state capitals on December 15 for what will almost certainly be a formal confirmation of Mr Obama’s popular-vote victory on November 4.

But several states lack laws binding their Electoral College members to vote for the candidate to whom they are ostensibly pledged. Anti-Obama organisers are thus contacting individual electors in some of these states to urge them to act on the claim that he does not meet the constitutional requirement that a president be a “natural-born” US citizen.

Birth certificate

In response to such charges, the Obama campaign weeks ago posted on the internet a copy of his birth certificate. It affirms that he was born in the state of Hawaii.

His hardest-core detractors have questioned the authenticity of the document, however, and are continuing to contend, with no credible evidence, that he may have been born in Kenya.

As a related tactic, a lawsuit has been filed in California with the aim of preventing that state’s Electoral College members from casting their votes for Obama on December 15. “Questions” about his birth place are cited in the suit.

Another legal filing arguing that he may have been born in Kenya is due to undergo what will probably be pro-forma review by the US supreme court on December 8. The suit was earlier rejected by a federal judge in the state of Pennsylvania.

The improbable attempt to short-circuit Obama’s election highlights the refusal of a small minority of Americans to accept the voters’ verdict of November 4. This seemingly desperate effort also calls attention to one of the peculiarities of the US presidential election process.

The vote for president is not truly a national election, but rather a series of contests in the 50 states. What matters, according to the US constitution, is not the nationwide popular vote tally, but rather the allocation of votes among the 538 members of the Electoral College.

Americans technically vote for a set of electors pledged to a particular candidate — and not directly for the candidate. In 48 of the states, the candidate with the largest share of the popular vote is awarded all of the state’s electors.

Electors are distributed in accordance with the states’ relative populations. Thus, California has the most electors, 55, while thinly populated states have as few as 3 electors.

The Electoral College is one of the legacies of African enslavement. It gave disproportionate power to southern states that denied black people the right to vote.

These slave-holding states were permitted to count a slave as three-fifths of a human being for the purpose of apportionment of the Electoral College.

Popular vote

On three occasions in US history — most recently in the contest in 2000 between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Albert Gore — the winner of the national popular vote did not become president because he did not receive a majority within the Electoral College.

And in about six presidential elections, at least one member of the Electoral College did not vote for the candidate to whom he or she was pledged. This phenomenon of “unfaithful electors” has never influenced the outcome of a presidential race.

Even in the highly unlikely event that more than one elector were to prove unfaithful on December 15, Obama would still win a large majority in the Electoral College. On the basis of the states’ tally on November 4, he was awarded 365 electoral votes to Sen John McCain’s 173.

Submitted by prohtuya
Posted November 30, 2008 12:29 PM

its called throwing anything and all that you got.spanners,pliers,bolts...just may be one will work. i highly doubt if they can succeed.doesnt hold any water coz he wont have come all this way only to be denied what the Americans want,obama!!

Submitted by Hillaryio
Posted November 30, 2008 08:05 AM

Absolute rubbish!

Submitted by steveb777
Posted November 30, 2008 04:51 AM

Get your facts strait. Obama did NOT show his Birth certificate. He showed a (digitally altered) "Certificate of Live Birth" that does not prove, state or claim that he was born in Hawaii. His sister was born in Indonesia and has the very same type of Hawaiian Certificate. I'll support him for president, but I want to know the truth of his background.

Submitted by allen80303
Posted November 30, 2008 04:06 AM

This article is factually incorrect. First of all, the Electoral College was put in place in 1785 before anyone even contemplated southern states being added to the union or slaves voting. In fact, it was in place even before women of any color could vote.

Submitted by hinnis
Posted November 29, 2008 11:31 PM

It is not a matter of hating Obama, it is a matter of law. Under our Constitution, only a natural born citizen may be President. No one has seen Obama's birth certificate; he has only posted an "alleged" copy of a certification of live birth on his website. Rather than submit a certified copy of his birth certificate to the court, Obama spends thousands of dollars and fights these multiple lawsuits (some all the way to the Supreme Court). He could stop all of this speculation immediately, if he had nothing to hide.