The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — To thunderous applause and the flash of cameras, Indiana’s 11 presidential electors formally cast their ballots Monday for Barack Obama as Democrats savored the mostly ceremonial anointing of their party’s first nominee to carry the state in 44 years.
Cheers were followed by sustained, rhythmic applause after Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced that all of Indiana’s electors voted for Obama during the festive, 90-minute ceremony in the packed Indiana House chambers.
Monday’s vote was being repeated in state capitals nationwide in a step mandated by the Constitution as the country’s Electoral College moved to close the book on November’s election.
Indiana’s only black elector, Cordelia Lewis-Burks, said it was a thrilling moment to be able to cast her ballot for Obama, who will be sworn in Jan. 20 as the nation’s first black president.
“This is a part of history and for me it’s triple exciting because Barack Obama is the president-elect,” said Lewis-Burks, a retired labor union official who is vice chairwoman of the Indiana Democratic Party.
Before Monday’s vote, a military color guard led the electors up the aisle of the House chambers, where the five women and six men were seated to the flash of cameras and applause from the gathering on the House floor and those who filled the balcony.
Rokita, a Republican, presided over the ceremony in his capacity as secretary of state, declaring that November’s election, in which Obama narrowly defeated Republican Sen. John McCain in Indiana while winning the presidency was a “historic election” with record voter turnout.
“Today is a celebration not just for Democrats, but for all of us,” he said before the vote.
Once a head count showed that the correct number of electors were present, the voting began, with each elector filling out a special yellow ballots and signing their names — first on a ballot for Obama and then on one for his vice president, Joe Biden.
Monday’s voting came after Indiana’s electors, like many of their counterparts nationwide, received e-mails and letters from people urging them not to vote for Obama on the purported grounds that he was born in Kenya, and is ineligible to serve as president. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to Obama’s eligibility after turning down a similar appeal last week.
Lewis-Burks said she received 14 such e-mails and more than a dozen letters — including a half-pound package mailed from Alaska — making that claim despite Obama’s birth certificate showing that he was born in Hawaii.
She said the anti-Obama messages might arise from racism among people who can’t accept a black president, but she believes it’s more likely the senders are misinformed.
“I think it’s ignorance,” she said. “I understand ignorance and it’s not bliss — it’s sad.”
The following are Indiana’s 11 presidential electors who on Monday formally cast ballots for Democrats Barack Obama as president and Joe Biden as vice president:
Jeffrey L. Chidester of Valparaiso
Owen “Butch” Morgan of South Bend
Michelle Boxell of Warsaw
Charlotte Martin of Indianapolis
Jerry J. Lux of Shelbyville
Connie Southworth of Salamonia
Alan P. Hogan of Indianapolis
Myrna E. Brown of Vincennes
Clarence Benjamin Leatherbury of Salem
Daniel J. Parker of Indianapolis
Cordelia Lewis-Burks of Indianapolis
State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker, who also served as an elector, said he received “Fed-Ex packages, certified letters and e-mails galore over the last 24 hours” urging him not to cast his ballot for Obama.
He said some of that correspondence shows that some people don’t want to accept that Obama defeated McCain on Nov. 4 to become the nation’s first black candidate elected president and also the first Democrat to win Indiana since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
“People can’t seem to let go of the fact that a record number of people voted for the president-elect,” Parker said. “I think it’s just sour grapes on some people’s behalf.”
