Posted on 12/22/2016 6:27:37 PM PST by SMGFan
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Four Washington state electors who cast their vote for someone other than Democrat Hillary Clinton will each be fined $1,000 next week, the secretary of state's office said Thursday. David Ammons, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kim Wyman, told The Associated Press that the electors will have 60 days to pay the fine, and said the office is putting together an appeals process in case of a challenge. Clinton won the state's popular vote last month, earning her 12 electoral votes. Under state law, presidential electors — who are chosen by their party at their state convention — sign a pledge to vote for their party's nominees for president and vice president. But during Monday's Electoral College vote in Olympia, Clinton got just eight votes, while former Secretary of State Colin Powell got three and Native American tribal elder and activist Faith Spotted Eagle got one vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I still think: tree + rope + neck. Some assembly required.
Make an example out of them.
why? would you have voted for hildabeast? Its not like they were trump electors. Anything causing dems to loose their minds is by definition a good thing.
What about the 2 Texas faithless? Do they not get a fine or a consequence?
They showed zero respect for the law and their sworn duty. This kind of attitude will destroy this country if not nipped in the bud.
What’s to stop them next time?
I think the vote in Texas is anonymous, which the legislature needs to fix because this nonsense is going to continue.
I suppose that depends on Texas law.
really!
One person feels compelled to nullify millions of votes in a free and fair election.
Hang ‘em. Seems like the least we could do.
What about the disloyal two in Texas. They knew 7 months ago that their nominee was Trump and made a pledge to vote for him.
Each of these asses disenfranchised 132,000 Texans that voted for Trump.
The vote in Texas is anonymous. I watched it live online.
At issue is the fact that if their vote is allowed to stand, it sets a precedence for future vote shifting. What if it had been 270 electors deciding to vote for Romney or Ryan? Elections, even of Electors, have consequences.
But the two I saw who were named were the Supurn (sp) idiot and some other cat named Greene . .the one who voted for Ron Paul
I tend to agree. At 1k per traitor an election can be bought cheap. Even 10k per is chump change to someone like soros.
The two may have publicly announced their treachery, but the final vote itself was described as anonymous by the woman who conducted the proceeding, and it looked anonymous, with ballots tossed into open containers. The other voting by electors was handled by roll-calling.
He didn't say they had to be GOP electors. Why wouldn't he be liable for the fine?
Exactly. they thought of their jobm,a bnd people voting as a joke, regardless of who they were supposed to vote for.
Probably the answer is to change the wording of the legislation so that the electoral votes are cast automatically from the results of the election. Some state official such as the secretary of state could authorize the covering document. But the wording should be airtight to prevent any subjective change in vote away from the actual winner of the state’s vote totals.
There is no real need to have individuals casting ballots in this process. The intent is to represent states by population, so the process should be automatic to do that. This archaic system of entrusting the vote with individual voters in the electoral college invites abuse and introduces an entirely unnecessary risk of producing a result not intended by the voters.
In the case of Washington state, the secretary of state there could send a letter to Congress stating something like this: “The voters of Washington state have by a majority of the ballots cast chosen HRC for president, therefore it is my constitutional duty to inform Congress that Washington State casts 12 votes for HRC.” Same idea for Texas. Maine and Nebraska could send a somewhat more complicated form letter based on their different system of assigning electoral college votes.
I realize that this is usually a formality and the casting of an electoral college vote may be considered an honor for some public servant of long standing. However, this election has opened up Pandora’s box and revealed that the constitutional intent is capable of being thwarted by the personal opinion of a handful of people who have absolutely no constitutional foundation for doing what (in this case) seven out of 538 did. That is too large a percentage for comfort, what if the results had been 270-266?
That should read 270-268 I suppose.
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