Yeah we learn about the three branches of power, but the College of Electoral Votes (CEV), is still a mystery that I just can’t get-no matter how I have read the constitution. Checking the Internet made it a little better. Still, I don’t trust it.

I was getting excited until I started to listen to the radio over the Internet. No mention of Mc Cain at all. The focus was on record-breaking long lines at the polling stations that started at 6am. It was like hearing about an election in like India or South Africa. This event is so big that in New York City, the Starbucks was giving out free coffee to those who have voted. That’s big, because no matter what country you take your Starbucks from, it costs a pretty penny.

The 2004 presidential election was a tragedy that has lasted four years in human time and twenty-eight in dog years. Not only have the citizens of America been bludgeoned by the Bush-Chaney double whammy combo, but the rest of the world has caught some hits as well. It’s 7:20 am here in Dubai and 9:20pm in New York City and now they are saying that with three states to go, Obama may win. Still, what does it mean? It means that they have put their votes in and the mysterious CEV had been up all day taking these votes and putting the thumbprint on final count. This means that they will just do a Republican-Democrat thing, where they just give their votes totaling them up for each candidate. If only this was a world wide CEV, he would be a shoe-in. The weary world is looking for Obama, to do something different.

Still, there is a terror in my heart. I still remember the election of 1984 where after the Regan’s first term where the country was suffering. From Nixon 10 years earlier with oil crisis, Watergate, and disillusionment in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1980, the republic elected the goofiest actor in Hollywood, Ronald Reagan, whose best film role was a small in the Bowery Boys in the 1940’s. Nevertheless, he won.

The Mondale-Reagan race of 1984 was a complete disaster for the general public. While the difference between the Reps and Dems was a mere 20,000 votes, the electoral votes flipped the script with 18 CEV’s for Mondale and 525 CEV’s for Reagan. The nation’s heart sank. As I watched CBS late news, the commentator said, “It looks like Mondale is winning.” But the CEV’s didn’t have the same feeling. They went overwhelmingly with Reagan. It was a sad day for the popular vote and the imagined democracy.

The 2000 vote was stolen via lawsuit. So, even though right now, it’s 12 minutes to 11pm NYC time almost 8 in the morning here. Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio announces: “In a few minutes, they will announce Barack Obama as the president elect.” And as he also observes that all of the political dynasties are falling, I still feel nervous. The suspense is like that of a psychological thriller. If only killer will just hurry up and grab his prey. I don’t want to drop my popcorn just yet.

Only four and a half minutes, but what about the Electoral votes? Will it change? People are already dressed up and ready to party. Obama wins Florida! Two elections of catastrophe with Republicans busing in alien voters and campaigners to boost the Bush vote, intimidate African American voters, we are vindicated! With just one minute to go, I still don’t even want to move. I am waiting. He is going to say it! “Barack Obama is projected as the president, there are cheers, (scratchy mobility breaks in cracking the echoes, and whooo’s) people are going crazy, hugging and clapping. It’s 11pm and 15000 people are out in Harlem (a place that is normally empty at dusk).” “Better than New Year’s Eve?” Brian asks, “Yeah, I would say so, the correspondent suggests.” Going to Chicago, the Obama Jamma Gamma party has started 100,000 people in euphoria. Really, really, really, I want to be happy, but I can’t help but remember, the cardinal rule of war battling, don’t celebrate too fast.

I feel so sad for my parents and grandparents, who won’t see this. Grandma only voted once in her life, for Jesse Jackson the only African American Democratic presidential candidate of the 20th century. Grandma, 22 years later, it is true, after five hundred years of Africans in America, 400 years after, Jamestown, after 200 million born and died in the Middle Passage and the uncounted slaves who counted as only 3/5th of taxable humanity, from a dream deferred, an ignored proposal, and a hope put away for later, I am listening to now, its only 50/50 people are voting against him.

Andrea of NPR says: “Well, the popular vote as not been counted. 50/47 and Obama/Mc Cain.” Remember Mondale/Reagan? And they are still counting the California and Oregon. Then she adds, “In 2000 Bush lost the popular vote, but won the presidency.”

McCain is giving his concession speech. When he congratulates Obama, the audience boo’s. He says “No, he earned it. This is a historical election for African Americans. He mentions the event of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who invited Booker T. Washington, a famous African American intellectual of the time, to the White House and was criticised for it. Mc Cain, who is reading like the 7th grader giving reading his homework, trying to get an ‘A’, goes on to thank his supporters. He goes on, “I love country and offer his hand to Obama.”

At my Alma Mater Rutgers University, they are cheering. New Brunswick is not only a college town, but it’s a Muslim town, where the students have been fighting for absentee ballots which was a defacto disenfranchisement zone. But tonight/this morning there are cheers.”

In Chicago, a soulful Star Spangled Banner being sung, when he says the Land of the free and the Home of the brave, for the first time, for real, it’s true. For once, America is the land of the free, to be yourself, and being brave in being yourself. Ok, I am starting to believe it, tears are forming somewhere in my head and trying to push from the back of my eyes to the front.

With Stevie Wonder playing “Here I am baby, Signed Sealed, Delivered in Times Square, New York”. It’s gotta be good, if Stevie is playing. Fasten your seat belts, folks, we are about to take off. Obama speaks, it’s not too different from his norm: “Hello Chicago, if there is anyone out there who doubts that all things are possible in America, tonight is your answer…This time change has come to America”.

For the first time in eight years, a president speaks to the world with intelligence and friendship. Obama, evoked the African tradition of call and response, the chorus of his speech being ‘Yes we can!’ with the audience responding; “Yes we can.” I think I can hear some echoes from around the world. “Ye he can.” My neighbour came to congratulate me. No too sure what the future holds. I know one person is very happy. Brooklyn’s Imam Abdul Malik who said, two years ago, “It’s time to paint the White House Black. InshaAllah.” Yes, we can.

Maryam Ismail is a Sharjah-based Arab American writer. She can be reached at: maryam@journalist.com