By By JOHN EBY / Niles Daily Star
Participation by 40 million eligible women who sat on the sidelines in the 2000 election could have made irrelevant wrangling about the Electoral College and Supreme Court awarding the White House to George W. Bush over Al Gore.
Florida aside, the vice president bested Bush in the popular vote, 50,999,897 (48.38 percent) to 50,456,002 (47.87 percent), but prevailed 271-266 in crucial electoral votes.
Groans arose from the predominantly senior citizen audience attending a lecture on close and disputed elections Wednesday evening at the Museum at Southwestern Michigan College when Dr. Mary Young of Niles played a revealing clip from a recent Oprah Winfrey show.
The brief excerpt with a variety of women "who have never voted, given their ages and professions, struck me profoundly," Young said.
Saddest to Young is the 47-year-old woman.
Oprah informs her audience that 40 million women equals "the number of people in New York and Texas combined."
Oprah points out that these are American women because females in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are prohibited from voting.
Young has been an instructor for 20 years at Southwestern Michigan College, where she teaches cultural anthropology, sociology and American government.
Young has an associate degree from Delta College, bachelor's and master's degrees from Central Michigan University and her doctorate from Michigan State University.
Even when the Founding Fathers framed the Constitution, how to elect the President of the United States vexed them. Of the 74 invited to the convention, 55 showed up and only 39 signed the document. George Washington's attendance was promised to entice others into attending.
Virginia and New Jersey plans offered opposing ideas. Virginia's was patterned after Parliament, with legislators choosing an independent leader. New Jersey proposed an executive committee selected by a unicameral Congress.
The Connecticut compromise agreed on one body based on population and directly elected by the people, the House of Representatives. The Senate would have two people from each state, chosen by the state. Popular election of senators didn't occur until a constitutional amendment passed in 1913.
Michigan has 18 electoral votes based on its 16 House members and two senators. Each House seat, such as U.S. Rep. Fred Upton's 6th District that includes Cass County, represents almost 700,000 people. California is the richest state in electoral votes with 54; three would be the least. The District of Columbia has three despite no congressional representation.
Popular vote records weren't even preserved until the 1824 election, even in the National Archives. "Candidates played to the electors," Young said. "Each elector got to vote for a president and a vice president. Each cast two votes and whoever got the most electoral votes would be president and whoever got the next-highest vote would be vice president.
The first rough patch cropped up in the fourth election of 1800 with the Democrat-Republican ticket of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. "They get the same number of electors (73), and that's not the way it was supposed to go," Young said. "You need a majority of the college to win the presidency.
Federalist John Adams of Massachusetts came in third, with 65, but proved an attractive compromise - "a far lesser evil than the dangerous Jefferson," Young said - to ultimately elect Jefferson.
Electors today are chosen at state party conventions. Voters go to the polls on the first Tuesday following the first Monday. Electors meet on the first Wednesday following the second Monday.
November and December avoided conflicts with harvesting crops.
Inaugurations originally took place March 4 rather than in January.
Controversy cropped up again in 1824 with a field of four strong Democratic-Republican presidential contenders - Andrew Jackson of Tennessee (99), John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts (88), William Harris Crawford of Georgia (41) and Henry Clay of Kentucky (37).
Jackson carried the popular vote, 153,544 to 108,740 for Adams.
It's the first time the popular vote failed to produce the president.
The 1872 election presented an interesting dilemma with Gen. U.S. Grant of Illinois winning, 3,597,132 (and 286 electoral votes) to 2,834,125 (but only three electoral votes) for Horace Greeley of New York, who famously said, "Go West, young man," who had died. Alive, he would have received 86 electoral votes.