Since the American constitution was ratified and adopted in September 17th 1787, the people of the United States have remained loyal without constitution until this day. Although there have been up to twenty-one amendments, the major plank of that constitution has remained strong. Basically, the American constitution was based on three main planks: Democracy, Rule of Law, and Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Movement and Liberty.
In addition, the constitution provided for a network of electoral processes which ensures one man one vote. Although the United States of America through proclamation of Independence came into effect on the 4th of July 1776 the peoples of United States have remained united with a strong faith in their constitution.
One of the hallmarks and pillars of American constitution is the provision of electoral process which ensures a network of election of the president of the United States, the Vice Presidents, State Governors, their deputies and other public officers who must be elected in their various states and districts.
The climax of American election is that of the President and Vice President which comes up on every second Tuesday in November in fourth year. On that day on the fourth year, the election will never, absolutely never be postponed even if there is natural or unnatural calamities.
Thus, Americans respect the letters of their constitution.
For example, the presidential election in the United States was held on the 3rd of November, 2020. The next presidential election will be on the second Tuesday of November four years from now.
Honestly, as a political scientist who was educated in America with a heavy background in American political history, I have read so many books and seen comparatives of accounts of America and I have not read or heard of any time that American presidential election attracted the type of attention it attracted in this year’s election. The reason was obvious. It needs to be explained.
The emergence of Covid-19 which has become a global calamity distorted a lot of national and international events worldwide. Because of these, Americans modified the process of registering for the presidential election and procedures for voting which actually is already in the constitution thus allowing for absentee voters.
That is for those who could not come out to vote on the Election Day to take the advantage of a provision in election process to vote earlier within a specified period. This was done to avoid the disenfranchisement of many citizens. Secondly, there were many prospective voters who would not like to come out in the crowd to cast their vote hence the law allowed them to go to the post offices, complete the ballot papers, make their votes and drop them in boxes provided in various post offices.
Consequently, this gave young voters and the elderly the opportunity to cast their votes at their conveniences. Fortunately elderly and middle age voters who were used to the practice of going to vote on the Election Day did not take advantage of this early voting process.
It is assumed that many democrats who are any way in majority in the United States that members of the Republican Party took full advantage of this process. It was for this reason that few days after the election, many absentee boxes were coming in thousands as long as they came within the speculated time. And this resulted in over flowing number of votes in favor of Joe Biden the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party and his running mate.
This was the reason that in some key states where Donald Trump coasted early victory was torpedoed when absentee ballots came in. That was why he began to cry foul of the election. Since then he has done everything possible to overturn the election: the victory of Joe Biden using all manner of tactics including threats to elector, intimidation to election official and using Fox television network to spread falsehood of election rigging. In all, he has filed over sixty-two election petition cases in order to reverse the result including one big one in the Supreme Court yet he has not succeeded in even one of the cases.
The climax of Biden’s ascendency to the presidency was on the 14th day of December when the electors in all the fifty states of the United States gathered in all the capitals to fulfill their constitutional roles of voting for the president. Although, ordinarily, this was a formal process but it became a national matter because of gimmicks of Donald Trump and his Republican apologists. This process was given unusual attention.
Throughout the nation, Americans were once again glued to their television sets to see if those electors will renege in their commitment according to already known results. Fortunately, not even one elector was bought over including those who were threatened by Donald Trump’s racists.
Now the next stage in the constitutional process of electing American president will be in the first week of January when the House of Representatives will ratify the election of the electors. Thus given the invincibility of American elector, the congress will definitely ratify the election of the electors of Joe Biden and his deputy Kamal Harris will be sworn in on that day and that will therefore conclude the election and would make Joe Biden the forty-sixth American president.
From this, can Nigerians learn anything? If it is in Nigeria, opportunities were plentiful for money to change hands to upturn the politics of Joe Biden or the opposition Party would have staged protests or ballot snatching or something worse would have happened. The Supreme Court would have been unpopular to change the result. The simple question is this; can Nigerians learn anything from this? Do I need to say more?? This is indeed an American political culture.
