Can you explain the composition of carbonate?

[mrjeffy321]

I would appreciate someone responding who actually knows what he or she is talking about. To reitterate, my question is "How can there be a charge
if there is a equal number of protons and electrons, in a polyatomic ion?"
-Scott

To think that the people who have responded don't know what they are talking about is just wrong, some a quite knowledgeable (and it is best not to push people away that are trying to help).

As LordOfBaal said,

You must see that the atoms can't be both charged and neutral at the same time. The carbonate ion is charged due to it having 2 extra electrons - no amount of double bond moving will remove this charge.

This is inline with your book, saying that the Hydroxide ion (and more specifically, the Oxygen side of the Hydroxide) picked up an extra electron.
When the extra electron is picked up (or lost), the number of protons and electrons are not equal, and there is an imbalance in the charge. In Hydroxide's case, there is a -1 charge.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Sorry about that. You guys explained it. Its just that when I have looked at the diagrams that model polyatomic ions before, I couldn't tell the number of electrons in the model, because for extra electrons would be marked with a 'X'. I didn't know this counted as an electron. Just to let you know, your explanations always made sense, but I thought that there was more information I was not getting.
Thanks and sorry,
-Scott