#5

In class today, we followed the American presidential election. That's one perk about living in East Asia: when the polls close, you're waking up and you get to listen in on the results while kids in the States are sleeping through all the excitement. And my class is super lucky, our teacher Miss Grothoff is the daughter of a current US Senator whose position is up for reelection now.

So here we are now. We’re all sitting in class staring up at the results, being projected from a projector that was borrowed from the library. We waited as the little box figures representing states started filling up with either red or blue.

Miss Grothoff was pretty excited about it and it showed. She kept rambling on and on about how this election was special because this was the first time an African American had any remote chance of reaching the white house. Her word per minute left us thinking she was on a sugar high; her prancing back and forth explaining the electoral system left us dazed and confused.

“Why are we using the electoral college system? Doesn’t that mean you can be elected as president with fewer votes than your opponent?”

“Yes! Actually, eight year ago Al Gore won the popular vote but still lost. Do you know what popular vote means? It means that Gore actually received more individual votes than his opponent George Bush, the current president.”

“Isn’t that unfair? Shouldn’t the more popular candidate win?”

“Well, our founding fathers purposely chose to have the elections held this way; it’s fairer for smaller states. Students, please look up at the screen. California, here, has an estimated population of 36 million. Now compare that to New Hampshire that has an estimated population of 1.3 million. Even though New Hampshire is a small state, it still deserves to have a say. It’s like our discussion yesterday, with representation. New Hampshire would barely have a say in who becomes president, but if we converted the votes into electoral college votes, smaller states can collate and support one candidate, giving smaller and less industrial states more say in the federal government.”

“Miss Grothoff . . . I still don’t get it.”

“Miss Grothoff, I agree with Terrence. How can you lead a country if you don’t get the popular vote? I mean, it’s not democratic at all. I thought with democracies, the majority always wins.”

“The United States is actually a constitutional republic. If we were a democracy, you students could take over the class.”

We went silent after that. Well, silent as in we didn’t ask anymore questions. But in our brains everyone had the same idea going through their minds: take over the class.

After our math lesson we switched the projector back on and checked the results again. Obama won by an electoral college landslide, and Miss Grothoff’s father had lost his seat in Congress. She was a republican. The rest of the day was pretty gloomy after that.

[Congratuations America!]