Read Online Presidential Lottery by James A. Michener - Free Book Online

D. Dimoff on the grounds that since he spoke Russian and French he could conduct international negotiations with Brezhnev and de Gaulle in their own languages. One delegate said, “If his reasons had been more persuasive we might have elected him.” Because, of course, we were free to choose whomever we wished.
    Later I discovered that the Commission on Election Reform was one man, Dimoff, and his campaign had attracted much attention in the west. Dimoff promised that in the unlikely event that he was chosen as Nixon’s partner, “I would expect almost to be snubbed by him for thwarting his will. After that, I expect we probably could establish a relationship of cordial good will. I would work not to absorb any of his functions.” He entered the race, he said, to draw attention to the fact that the electors could do whatever they wished. He made only one campaign promise: to go on a diet and lose sixty pounds so he wouldn’t look so fat at government functions.
    My attention was now distracted by a messenger who informed me that one of our substitute delegates, Roland Greenfield, was himself going to miss the opening gavel because the snowstorm had immobilized his car in Philadelphia. “I’m going to try to make it by train,” he had told headquarters over the phone. We consulted as to what to do, and since we had no more substitutes on hand, we decided to start proceedings and trust that he would arrivebefore the time for swearing in of the delegates. My first half hour in command, therefore, was spent with one eye on the door to see whether we were indeed going to have twenty-nine electors.
    When we opened with a prayer, Greenfield was absent. When we swore in the regularly elected electors, he was still missing. It was now time to swear in the substitute delegates and there was still no Greenfield. I held a whispered consultation as to what we should do, because no substitute elector is eligible to serve unless he has written authorization from the governor attesting to his credentials.
    In the back of the room I saw the round and beaming face of Sam Frank of Allentown, and I whispered, “I’m sure Sam will serve if we need him.”
    We were about to conscript Sam, who I knew was a good Democrat, when the doors burst open and a very breathless Roland Greenfield arrived, just in time to be sworn in. By hook and by crook we had assembled twenty-nine duly authorized electors, and this same farce was being repeated today in all the fifty state capitols. These capriciously assembled men and women were free to determine history. One wondered why they had agreed to serve. Certainly it wasn’t the pay—three dollars plus three cents a mile one way from their homes.
    There was no uncertainty as to how the members felt about the College. Matt Gouger was telling everyone, “It ought to be abolished.” Minehart told those seated near him, “It’s served its usefulness.” A committee working for reform asked for my signature to their petition and I gave it.
    When Joe Kelley, secretary to the commonwealth and organizer of the College, spoke he said, “It may well be that the ancient drumbeat that brings us together better served a distant day. But so long as we do not choose to revise it, we will continue to march to the measure of its thought.”
    Governor Shafer was more blunt; he said, “However improbable, the constitutional fact is that you electors across the nation could upset the will of the American people as expressed last November 5, if you chose to disregard their mandate.
    “The agony of those uncertain moments on election eve serve as sharp reminders that we must take positive action to safeguard our country against the specter of an undecided election. It is no reflection upon the grandeur of our Constitution to urge that we revise it in this area. The very generation that framed it moved swiftly to add the Twelfth Amendment in 1804 after the famous tie vote of the electors made impossible any choice