Delegates at the Royal College of Midwives conference asked the union's governing council to consider balloting the 37, 000 members over industrial action.
Housing the black delegates was not a problem, since all delegates stayed in local college dormitories, which were otherwise empty over the year-end break.
The Electoral College was created in 1787 by a constitutional convention whose delegates were unconvinced that the election of the president could be entrusted to an unfiltered vote of the people, and were concerned about the division of power among the 13 states.