Posted on 04/20/2016 2:04:28 PM PDT by snarkpup
The process for selecting Electors varies throughout the United States. Generally, the political parties nominate Electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party’s central committee in each State.
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There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote.
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Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party’s candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
(Excerpt) Read more at archives.gov ...
I cannot remember this being a significant issue in any previous election in my lifetime; but some things are different now:
From caucus activists to the country's top conservative commentators, influential people are promoting the idea that allowing the voting intentions of the general public to make it all the way through the system and affect the result is a slippery slope to mob rule. These are the oligarchs whose battle cry is "We're not a democracy!"
These same activists and commentators are trying to socialize the free-range delegate concept, getting the public used to it so that it will not be seen as "cheating."
Candidates who have the ethics to avoid gaming the system in this way are being ridiculed as chumps who "haven't gone to the effort to learn the rules," and are therefore not qualified for the office.
As the tutorial states: "Generally, the political parties nominate Electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party’s central committee in each State." This sounds a lot like the GOPe. If the GOPe wants to throw the election to Hillary, this would be an easy way to do it.
A few months ago, we would have all said "They wouldn't dare!" But nowadays?
Oh how I long for our nation to return to our Founding Principles and values!
We have strayed so far - but I refuse to think even now that all is lost. We need severe correction for sure.
The severe correction will come when a liberal Supreme Court tries to reinterpret the 2nd Amendment.
The judges will not like the correction one bit.
For that matter, there is no Constitutional provision or Federal law which provides for people in their states voting to choose Electors in the first place.
The method of choosing Electors is entirely at the discretion of State Legislatures, a "Presidential election" is neither required nor necessary.
The electors are chosen by each party. Technically they are elected on election day. If a state is carried by the Democrat, then it will be the Democrat electors who vote in the electoral college. Its not as if electors are standing by to see who their state votes for to see who they will support in the electoral college. It will be party loyalists from the winning political party who cast the actual electoral votes.
First of all, the constitution doesn’t set any restrictions on how the electors can vote other than the the P and VP candidates they vote for can’t be from the same state. So laws binding electors to statewide winners are unconstitutional. Loyal party members are chosen to be electors for a reason.
Second of all, under no circumstances would Republican electors vote for Hillary. Even going along with this ridiculous idea, they would vote for a RINO, throwing the election to the House so it could elect that RINO. But that’s not gonna happen either.
“o” said the wide mouthed frog....
http://flossieteacakes.blogspot.com/2011/11/joke-about-wide-mouthed-frog.html
Good point
B.S. Reread the Constitution. Another party hack spreading myth to rig an election.
Elector Seals vote. No unbound. No 2nd, no 3rd, no multiple voting. More myth.
No. I learned this fact years ago, long before Trump was anything more than a real estate developer. It came up in discussions on “faithless electors”.
I don’t care whether it sits well with you or not and you can think whatever you want about me.
But as I said, nothing funky is going to happen, the GOP electors will vote for the GOP nominee. I just hope there are at least 270 of them.
Turn on the news. There's nothing on today but delegate crap. Everything's "ridiculous," inconceivable and impossible. It's like we're in one of those alternate universes that physicists speculate about.
The Electoral College is rigged in the Democrats’ favor with 21st Century demographics, particularly the 18% of the potential electorate that is Latino and where they live. A Democrat can get to 270 electors by winning in only 14 states plus the District of Columbia; states that were won by Obama in 2012:
California (55), New York (29), Florida (29), Illinois (20), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), New Jersey (14), Virginia (13), Washington (12), Massachusetts (11), Maryland (10), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), plus District of Columbia (3) = 270 Electors.
Obama also won in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont which accounted for an additional 62 Electoral votes.
That is because the Founders distrusted democracy and didn't anticipate that the people would actually be electing the president. Their vision was that the people would send the most informed citizens in their state to make the choice.
Occasionally, an elector defects. In 1976, one Ford elector (I think in Washington state) voted for Reagan, and four years earlier, a Nixon elector voted Libertarian.
Of course, it's never done, but you can always run a slate of unpledged electors, if you can get enough signatures -- and it's a way around "sore loser" laws.
Maine and Nebraska elect two electors statewide, and the rest by Congressional district, creating the possibility that their electoral votes could be split.
If no one gets a majority of the Electoral College, then the House chooses the president from among the top three, each state having one vote. (So the party that controls the House delegation would control that state’s vote.)
The Senate would choose the Vice President from the top two.
So in your scenario where the Establishment gets electors to vote fora RINO (say, Kasich, just to pick a name), the top three would go to the House. But if they pick the #3 candidate (presumably the RINO nominee), he would not be able to have his running mate as VP, It would either be the GOP nominee’s VP candidate or the Dhimmicrap.
The single time we’ve had a president and vice president from different parties was during the one-term administration of John Adams (an underrated Founder), when his vice president was Thomas Jefferson.
I don’t even see any reason anymore for human electors in this technological age.
If a state votes in the majority for the republican candidate, and there are 20 ‘electors’ in that state, then all that’s really needed any more is a point system. Just award those twenty points to the party winner.
Back in the day..electors were necessary to carry votes to a central place to award those collected to the candidate. Then we got electronic vote machines, radios, televisions, computors...all those ‘’points’’ can be issued and registered without much human intervention.
All that really needs to happen is non-hacked vote counting cheat software.
I think we should go to doing it by Congressional district (2 electors for statewide winner 1 for each district carried). Or at least have Lib-leaning states under GOP control do so.
Michigan (R Gov and Leg) would be perfect. If if votes Republican statewide then it’s likely the Republican didn’t need it to win anyway. They considered it but wussed out. Could have given Romney 9 extra votes I believe, which would have been the difference if he had also carried the 3 big close states, FL, OH, and VA.
I could not agree more. The current system of winner take all by popular vote is rigged.
Only Maine and Nebraska use a proportional system of allocating Electoral votes.
I think its unfair that 20% of the Electors needed to win come from only one state: California with 55 Electors. That’s 17 more than the next most populous state: Texas with 38 electors.
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