news-record.com

RALEIGH - Wayne Abraham will get to do something today that most U.S. citizens never do: cast a vote for president.

Although North Carolinians saw Barack Obama's name on the ballot, they were actually choosing a slate of electors who will meet today at the Old State Capitol in Raleigh. Across the nation, similar groups will meet and the Electoral College will formally confirm Obama's ascension to office.

"I thought it would be interesting and exciting to cast, in a sense, the real vote for president," Abraham said.

He is one of 15 electors who will cast ballots in North Carolina: One for each congressional district and two elected statewide.

Electors are chosen by their parties. In Abraham's case, he was selected during the Democrats' 6th Congressional District convention in May. Each party submits a full slate of 15 electors and two alternates.

Under North Carolina law, the party whose candidate for president wins the state gets to seat all 15 electors. In some states, electors are divided by who wins each congressional district.

"Because the electors' names and contact information is public record ... the electors are contacted frequently, excessively some would say, with pressure," said N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who is responsible for bringing the state's electoral college together and instructing them in their duties. "I know what kind of e-mail we are getting."

According to Marshall and Abraham, the most frequent correspondence is from those who say that Obama has not proven he is a U.S. citizen and should not be seated as president.

That claim goes back to early in the campaign and was probably fueled by the fact that birth certificates in Hawaii are not public records available for anyone to inspect as they are here. But the claim has been investigated by a number of nonpartisan outlets, including Congressional Quarterly's PolitiFact.com Web site and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, both of which are relied on heavily by news organizations to debunk rumors.

Writing on its Factcheck.org Web site, a staffer at Annenberg said they "have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false."

The Electoral College is an arcane piece of American governance, harkening back to the beginning of the country when the founding fathers didn't quite trust the masses to make good decisions.

And there have been moves to get rid of it, or at least mute its impact. A bill passed the state Senate this year that would have brought North Carolina into a compact of states that agreed to give their votes to the winner of the popular vote nationally. The idea, according to sponsors, would be to avoid a situation where a candidate wins the popular vote but loses the electoral count. That bill didn't pass the House.

So could an elector go rogue and vote for someone else?

The best answer may be that they're not supposed to. Marshall said it's unclear whether they could be penalized, although state law does provide for a $500 fine for an elector who bucks the vote.

According to state law, electors have the opportunity to resign before they meet. "Failure to so resign shall signify consent to serve and to cast his vote for the candidate of the political party which nominated such elector," reads the law governing the state's Electoral College.

"I've only been contacted a few times personally," said Sam Spencer, 23, of Davidson who was chosen as an elector from the 12th Congressional District. Spencer may be the youngest elector who will sit in Raleigh on the 15th and said he's glad his generation will be represented.

"We've been a lot of the story both at the national and local level," he said. "Youth involvement has been on of the themes of the campaigns."

The electors' involvement might not be over. They're invited to the inauguration.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com