Robert Levy, a local attorney and chairman of the Moore County Republican Party, has been elected president of North Carolina's Electoral College.

Levy also is a political columnist for The Pilot. His column appears every Sunday.

The college on Monday will be responsible for electing the next president of the United States, but the result is not in doubt. President Barack Obama secured 332 electoral votes in November's presidential election. The popular vote, though commonly thought to be the way the United States chooses its president, is actually a precursor. The Constitution requires the president be chosen by electors apportioned to each state.

Electors are not bound by the Constitution to cast their ballots according to their state’s popular vote, but the states themselves stipulate the way electors will vote. In all but two states, it's winner-take-all. North Carolina has 15 electors, and its members are required to mirror the state's popular vote for president. As such, the electors will vote for Romney on Monday.

In a Dec. 9 column on his experience as an elector, Levy wrote "It reminds me of “Gone With the Wind.” No matter how many times I see it, Scarlett still loses Rhett, and the South still loses the war.

"You see, I am one of the 538 electors who will go enact a secular passion play called the Electoral College. I know how the play ends. Obama will win. Romney will lose. Why should I go? It seems silly.

"Although the Constitution might suggest differently, North Carolina law is clear. If I do not go to Raleigh this month, I will be fined. If I do not vote for the Republican nominee, my vote will not be counted, and I will be replaced by someone who will vote as commanded. All the while, everyone knows that in other state capitals, the vote for Obama will make what I do meaningless.

"Yet I am going to vote for Mitt Romney. I am taking my daughter with me to watch me vote. No matter what I do, the candidacy of Mitt Romney will die as it died in November.

Like Billy Pilgrim in the Kurt Vonnegut novel “Slaughterhouse-Five,” I will realize that I have seen my death. I have visited it many times. It always turns out the same. But I go there anyway in order to make a statement about the principles for which I stand."