Electoral Votes

WASHINGTON -- With two months left until the November 5 election, it would be foolish to believe that nothing can change the dynamics of the presidential campaign. But at the outset, President Clinton holds such a staggering lead that few professionals in either party would be surprised if he wins a landslide.Although polls are out of date in some states, the available evidence suggests that Mr. Clinton is leading in 30 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 366 electoral votes, 96 more than needed.

The editorial "Flunking Electoral College" (Dec. 16) suggests that the Electoral College should be abolished because "the system disenfranchises many voters and sometimes results in the candidate who wins the popular vote losing the presidency." The editorial then cites the law Gov. Martin O'Malley signed that "would award Maryland's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of who wins in this state." My question is: Who is disenfranchised if this law takes effect?

"DON'T KNOW much about geopolitics," I wrote about the Balkans, "but I have lots of dictionaries at my disposal, and what is going on in Bosnia is not genocide."Morton Winston of Columbia replied, "The dictionary only gives lexical definitions."The correct place to look for a definition of the term 'genocide' is in the text of the Convention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1948, entered into force as international law on Jan. 12, 1961, and was ratified by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 19, 1986.

WASHINGTON -- There are only 538 people in the country whose votes in this year's presidential election really matter.They are the members of the Electoral College, a group alternately condemned as an archaic relic or venerated as a precious link to the time of the Founding Fathers.When voters go to the polls today, they will be participating in but one of a chain of events that actually determines the next president.The Constitutional Convention of 1787 laid out the method by which presidents and vice presidents are chosen, a process clarified in the 12th Amendment.

Washington.- We are less than 12 months from the New Hampshire primary and less than certain that we can still say America has a two-party system. For now, we seem to have a one-and-a-half party system, with party competition stopping short of the presidential level.Electing a president has been difficult enough for Democrats since 1952. They have been in a 10-election slump, during which they have played .300 ball, a winning percentage .101 points below that of last year's Atlanta Braves.

We broke it to her gently over the phone. Ina Taylor, a Democratic Party activist from Bel Air, took the news surprisingly well. Her party had not notified her yet. She's one of the proud, the many and the mildly confused. Ina Taylor, housewife (and so much more), is a presidential elector for Maryland. "I have no idea why they selected me," Taylor said. "But I'm honored because I get to vote twice for Gore. I always say that - `vote twice' - but now I get to do it." In this cliff-hanging presidential race, all eyes and calculators are on the Electoral College.

WASHINGTON - A landslide it wasn't. By at least one measure, George Walker Bush's election was a triumph of historic proportions: the narrowest victory in a presidential contest since the early 1800s. The number of votes needed to change the outcome was the smallest since the current system of popularly electing presidents began in 1828, according to a soon-to-be published paper by James E. Campbell, a University of Buffalo political scientist. Up to now, the closest finish was the 1876 election, which turned on about 400 votes in South Carolina.

Among Republicans, it is an article of faith that high unemployment and voter disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy should put Mitt Romney in the White House. Unfortunately, Republicans fail to grasp that challengers must offer a compelling alternative to unseat an incumbent. And other issues matter more to voters than party leaders care to recognize. Mr. Romney's platform lays out detailed proposals to improve U.S. competitiveness, develop more domestic energy, streamline regulations and lower health care costs, but those are too complex to capture voter attention.

WASHINGTON -- As poll after poll indicates that Ross Perot will be a serious factor in the presidential election of 1992, a juicy irony looms on the political horizon: Congress, held in about as low public esteem as ever, could replace the popular will with its own and choose the next president or vice president, or both.If in a three-way race in November no presidential candidate achieves 270 electoral votes -- a majority of the electoral college -- the 12th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the names of the top three finishers will go before the House of Representatives, with each state delegation casting one vote only and 26 votes, a simple majority, required for a decision.

YOU CAN HEAR them now, can't you - the liberal Democratic horde, spoilsports because their guy, Al Gore, didn't win the state of Florida (at least not yet), clamoring for the Electoral College to be abolished? We didn't hear such talk when Bill Clinton won two successive elections or when John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election in a close popular vote but with an Electoral College vote of a considerable margin. We hear it now, with complaints that Gore, the poor guy, won the popular vote but might lose the presidential race because of electoral votes.