Democracy in the spotlight as Americans go to the polls by Kazeem Akintunde
Citizens of the United States of America, USA, will go to the polls on Tuesday, November 5th to elect the 47th president for their country. With nearly 186.5 million Americans eligible to vote tomorrow, and more than 65 per cent of that number expected to cast their ballots, the outcome of tomorrow’s election is of major concern to the entire world, being one of the super powers in world affairs. Whoever emerges the 47th President of the United States would have significant consequences on what would happen the world over, including the ongoing war in Gaza, the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Russian-Ukraine war, as well as the economic consequences of those conflicts, which have already negatively impacted on supply chains across the globe. Will Kamala Harris, candidate of the Democrats or Donald Trump, flag bearer of the Republicans, bring an end to these needless wars, or continue where President Joe Biden stopped?
As the bastion of democratic ethos, the focus of the entire world is now on the US and we, in Nigeria, will also be affected by the outcome of tomorrow’s polls in the USA. Even before the D-day, over 60 million Americans have already cast their ballots. It is projected that Tuesday’s election will bring out the best as well as the worst in the American people as the country is split into two, with no one able to predict where the pendulum would swing.
Already, democracy is undergoing a major stress test, as both Democrats and Republicans are poised for a big showdown. Those negative traits that have become noticeable in Third World countries are now rearing their ugly heads in America too. Or perhaps they may have been there, but covertly. Political thuggery, ballot box stuffing and snatching are prevalent in Africa and other developing countries during election season, but just few days after early voters began casting their ballots, incendiary devices were set off at two ballots drop boxes – one in Portland, and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington – destroying hundreds of ballots in what has been described as a direct attack on democracy in the USA.
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Though the early morning fire at the drop box in Portland was extinguished quickly, thanks to a suppression system inside the box as well as a nearby security guard, an insignificant number of ballots were damaged. The same cannot be said of what took place in Vancouver, few hours later, where another fire was discovered at a transit centre drop box in Columbia River.
Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. The ballot box in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system inside, but it failed to prevent hundreds of ballots from burning. Now, authorities are urging voters who had earlier dropped their ballots in the transit centre box to come for a replacement ballot. Is the USA now learning from us?
Vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are still running neck to neck, spending billions of dollars to convince voters who have not made up their mind on who to vote for, to choose them. We are sure likely to get a photo-finish race tomorrow.
Some states lean very clearly towards either Democrats or Republicans, making their electoral outcomes almost a given, but every four years, several states offer close races between the two main presidential candidates. These are known as battleground states, swing states or toss-up states. Candidates disproportionately focus their campaigns on these states.
Election analysts consider these states a battleground one, when opinion polls show the margin of victory in those states to be fewer than five percentage points. The seven battleground states expected to determine the outcome of the 2024 elections are Arizona, with 11 electoral votes; Georgia, with 16 electoral votes; Michigan, with 15; Nevada, with 6; North Carolina, with 16; Pennsylvania, with 19, and Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes. For Nigerians who may not be conversant with the US system, or what electoral college means, here is a simple guide: In the US, the president and Vice President are not directly elected by voters. When voters make their choices for these offices on their ballots, they are really voting for a slate of electors to represent their state. After the votes are counted and certified, these electors are pledged to vote for a Presidential and Vice-presidential candidate. These electors cast the deciding votes for the President and Vice- president during a meeting of the Electoral College in December. This year, it will vote on December 17.
In 48 states, the presidential candidate who gets the most votes wins all that state’s electors, but in Maine and Nebraska, the winner-takes-all method does not apply. These two states allocate their electors based on a more complicated system that reflects the popular vote on the state and congressional district levels. Hence, their Electoral College votes can be split. The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of its House members plus two, the number of US Senators from each state.
For example, California gets 54 Electoral College votes. That corresponds to its two senators and 52 House members. There are a total of 538 electors: 535 from the 50 states, and three from the District of Columbia, which is the Federal Capital, and not a state. Before the elections, the political parties in each state choose their slate of electors. The electors are almost always party officials or supporters. Under this system, a candidate who wins the popular vote may not actually win the White House. One recent example was in 2016, when Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College vote to Republican flag bearer, Donald Trump. His victory was buoyed by wins in key swing states that polls had predicted would go in favour of Clinton: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Of the current 538 electors, a simple majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the President and Vice president. A presidential candidate may have more votes but still lose the election if he/she failed to secure up to 270 electoral college votes as it was the case when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump. While she garnered 65,853,625 votes which represent 48 per cent of the entire votes cast, Trump got 62, 985, 106 votes- 45.9 per cent of the total votes cast. But Trump was declared the winner, having garnered 306 electoral college votes as against Clinton’s 232 electoral college votes. Although there are debates on whether the electoral college rule should still apply, it is still in practice and will come into play in this year’s election.
Now, the issues that have been on the front burner as Americans go to the polls tomorrow includes inflation, immigration, tax and the growing debt burden of the country. Although inflation across the country has cooled considerably from its peak of 9.1% in June of 2022, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) down to a three-year low of 2.4% in September, close to the Federal Reserve’s annual goal of 2%, most Americans still believe that it is still not low enough.
Job creation and appropriate wage for all is another issue most Americans will consider before deciding who to cast their ballots for. Although the job market is strong, with the U.S. unemployment rate near a 50-year low, the unemployment rate has inched up in recent months, one reason the Federal government opted to cut rates in September. Wages have been growing faster than inflation since May 2023, helping to dig some households out of the financial hole created by soaring prices. But such statistics don’t offset the long-term issues affecting some workers. Men without college degrees, for instance, have lost economic ground over the past several decades as the labour market shifted to professions requiring higher education and training. White Americans without a college degree are both more likely to say the economy is in bad shape than those with a bachelor’s degree, and they’re also more likely to support Trump.
Immigration is another issue with Trump stepping up his attacks on the Biden-Harris administration’s record on illegal immigration, pledging to conduct the largest deportation in American history if elected President. This is where many African Americans are solidly behind Kamala Harris, but that’s also an economic issue, given that there are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., with many working in meatpacking plants, on farms, on construction sites, and other jobs key to the country’s well-being. Deporting those immigrants could cause major economic headwinds, according to Adam Posen, President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Deporting migrants would be stagflationary for the U.S. economy”, he wrote on X in July. It would also cost taxpayers billions to deport millions of people, with a CBS News analysis estimating that it would cost $20 billion to apprehend and deport one million people alone.
Taxes have taken centre stage with both campaigns, as Trump and Harris have pledged to implement a number of tax cuts and credits to help certain groups of people. In some cases, the candidates have offered the same tax breaks, such as one to eliminate taxes on tips. But Trump has gone further, offering a laundry list of cuts to everyone from social security beneficiaries to car buyers.
Another issue is the national debt and the nation’s growing deficit, with both candidates’ economic proposals projected to add trillions to the country’s debt. Harris’s plans would add almost $4 trillion in debt through 2035, while Trump’s plan would increase it by almost $8 trillion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which favours narrower deficits.
During tomorrow’s election, voters across 50 states will also elect members of the House of Representatives. There are 435 seats in total, and each seat is up for election every two years. Each state’s allocated number of House members is determined by its population, so if a state loses or gains residents in a census, it stands to lose or gain seats in the House. There are six non-voting members of the House of Representatives (called either delegates or resident commissioners, in the case of Puerto-Rico) who represent the US territories. They do not have voting rights on legislation, but have floor privileges and can participate in certain other House functions.
There are also 33 Senate seats up for grabs this year, roughly one-third of the 100-seat body, and one seat will be decided in a special election. In the Senate, each state gets equal representation by having two seats each. It is not dependent on the size of its population the way the House of Representatives is. In the current Senate, there are 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats and four independents, who caucus with the Democrats: Bernie Sanders from Vermont, Angus King from Maine, Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona.
Also, voters in 11 states and two territories – Puerto Rico and American Samoa – will elect Governors: These are American Samoa, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
As Americans cast their ballots tomorrow, we in Africa watch and wait to see who will take charge of the White House for the next four years. Will there be violence, ballot snatching and burning, or court cases to determine who wins and who loses? The next few weeks would be interesting for political commentators across the globe.
See you next week.
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