Democrat Barack Obama Monday officially won North Carolina's presidential vote Monday, in an electoral college ceremony that made up with history and emotion what it lacked in suspense.
The 15-members of the state’s Electoral College met in the Old House Chambers in the Capitol at noon — at the same time that similar groups were meeting in the nation’s other 49 state capitals to choose a new president, Rob Christensen reports.
There was no suspense to the outcome. All 15 members were required by law to vote for Obama as a result of Obama’s narrow victory over Republican John McCain by a 49.7 to 49.3 percent last month.
But moment was packed with powerful emotions, as electors cast ballots to help make Obama the nation’s first president of black descent. The event packed not only the House chambers, but the overflow crowd nearly filled the nearby Senate chambers as well.
Virginia Tillett, an elector from Manteo and an African-American, urged the crowd to "remember the voices from your past."
Tillett, a 67-year old Dare County commissioner, said she remembered the voices saying "to hang in there...change is coming."
"I remember my grandmother who lived to be 89 years old," Tillett said later in an interview. "I heard people like my deceased father-in-law who lived to be 100. I heard voices like my mother who is now 87. I heard all these voices say: 'Didn't I tell you?'"
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