Hers is one vote that really counts
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| CLICK IMAGE to play a video report on Virginia Elector Dorothy Blackwell. (LAURA SANDERS/ Rockbridge Report) |
In December one of Lexington’s own will help Barack Obama take his place in the White House.
Dorothy Blackwell, a local artist and longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, is one of the 13 Virginia representatives in the Electoral College, called electors, who will cast votes for Obama’s presidential ticket next month.
It will be the first time in 44 years that Democratic electors have a say in how Virginia votes in the presidential election.
When Lexington and Rockbridge County residents picked up their pens, pulled their levers, or pushed their buttons on Election Day, they were not voting directly for president or vice president. Rather, citizens voted for what the State Board of Elections calls a “party slate of electors representing their choice for president and vice president.”
Virginia has 13 electors, one from each of Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts and two at-large electors who represent the Senate seats. The electors for Congressional districts must live in the district they’re representing.
Blackwell was elected by Democrats in the 6th Congressional district at the Congressional District Convention in May.
“It’s just the most exciting election that I can ever remember,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell worked in Iowa for a few months in 2004 for Sen. John Kerry’s bid for president against incumbent George W. Bush. She has also worked on several local Democratic campaigns, including Creigh Deeds’ bid for the Virginia Senate.
She also worked for Deeds when he ran for Attorney General of Virginia against Republican Bob McDonnell in 2005. Deeds lost, but only 323 votes separated the candidates — about 0.017 percent of the almost two million votes cast. It was the closest political race in Virginia’s history.
Blackwell also served Mayor-elect Mimi Elrod in her unsuccessful bid for a seat in the House of Delegates against Republican Ben Cline in 2002.
Democrats have historically had difficulty in what was once a predominantly Republican Virginia. But pundits and politics professors alike cite recent demographic shifts as signaling a changing tide in Virginia politics.
On Nov. 4 Virginia citizens voted for a Democratic candidate for president for the first time since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win in 1964. Blackwell couldn’t be more excited.
“It’s like we needed a new hope now,” she said. “We needed someone fresh with some new ideas. Someone young who can just maybe bring some hope to this country. And it’s like waking up the next day thinking ‘Yeah, all this bad stuff’s happening,’ but there’s hope it’s really going to change.”
In addition to her work for local Democrats, Blackwell shows her work at the Nelson Fine Arts Gallery in downtown Lexington, the Market Gallery in Roanoke, and Americas' Arts Galleries in Gettysburg.
Blackwell is one of 538 electors in the United States; a candidate needs votes from 270 of those electors to win the office of president or vice president.
Obama and Sen. Joe Biden won the 2008 general election with 365 promised electors to 162 votes for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin. Missouri, which has 11 electoral votes, is still processing results.
In every state except Maine and Nebraska, the party that wins the state’s popular vote will win the state’s electoral votes. It is possible, however, for a candidate to win the national popular vote overall and not win a majority of electoral votes. That happened in the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. But this time around, Obama beat McCain by almost eight million popular votes.
Virginia state law says electors “shall be expected” to vote for nominees, which some pundits say leaves the law open to interpretation. Blackwell doesn’t see it that way.
“I wouldn’t have been elected if they weren’t certain I was going to vote for who I said I would,” she said. “I got elected because I’m a Democrat and they know it.”
In the history of Virginia politics, there are only two instances — one in 1836 and another in 1972 — when electors did not vote for their party’s designated candidate. These so-called “faithless” electors did not affect the outcome of either race.
Blackwell doesn’t anticipate having any such problem in December.
Blackwell and Virginia’s other Democratic electors will travel to the state capital in Richmond in December to cast their electoral votes — one each for president and vice president.
The votes are sealed and taken to the president of the U.S. Senate, who is currently Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney will open the ballots Jan. 6 and read them to both houses of the U.S. Congress.
At noon on Jan. 20, Sens. Obama and Biden will be sworn into office, and Blackwell will be back at home.
The only thing Blackwell has left to do is wait for Dec. 15.
“The only thing I did was I called and said ‘Can I bring my grandkids?’” Blackwell said. “I want them to see the whole process. Not me, but the process.”
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Doug
Cumming
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd