Posted on 11/05/2012 12:04:29 PM PST by eartotheground
The Ohio Hypo: GOP State Legislature Voids Election, Appoints Electors
"The most shocking Electoral College result, however, would be for a state legislature to take the selection of the state's electors away from the voters.
Swing state Ohio, with its 18 electors, makes for a good, worst-case hypothetical: assume that on the night of November 6, President Obama narrowly wins the popular vote in Ohio, which in turn gives him a small victory in the Electoral College tabulation (also assume all Obama-pledged electors remain faithful).
By high noon on Wednesday, November 7, the GOP majority in the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate void the election results. The state legislature, through a simple joint-resolution, directly appoints the Romney-pledged slate of 18 electors. (In our hyper-partisan age, the hypothetical writes itself.)
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted and Treasurer Josh Mandel could aggressively support the elector appointment by alleging voter fraud, early vote irregularities and military vote suppression. Husted could proclaim that Ohio had taken back its electoral process from federal judicial control. Governor John Kasich (whose signature is not needed for the joint resolution), Senator Rob Portman and Representative John Boehner could each humbly defer to the will of their Ohio legislature. They would each rightly reference the US Constitution."
That might just prompt Civil War 2 and would certainly be the death of the Republican Party.
If it were the Democrats, on the other hand, they would receive medals and have movies made about their courage.
The ONLY way that could even remotely be considered would be if the results truly were tied and the courts were tying up the process to the point where Ohio was in danger of not being able to certify its electors.
that’s what I’m talking about. It actually came up in Florida in 2000, before the Bush v. Gore ruling
Yikes! Talk about “bold”! But would the SCOTUS approve?
When the number of votes tabulated greatly exceeds registration counts, as I’m sure they probably will, the state legislature will have little choice.
yes
touche
Ohio will be a landslide for Romney. Not to worry.
Obama will get Washington, Oregon, California, NY, NJ, and VT. That is all.
Perhaps NM MA and CN also.
In other words, the Kool-aid drinkers.
On what grounds do you base that answer? Has any state ever done this type of thing...particularly recently?
If Obama carries the eleven largest states, he wins, even if we carry the remaining 46 states. That's not realistic with TX one of our biggest states, but he only needs about a dozen, even without TX.
server fix test (ignore)
go to
http://jurist.org/forum/2012/11/victor-williams-electoral-college.php
for a scholarly discussion.
So there really are 57 states?
It's nice to see Mr. Pareto in action, again. 20% of the states with 80% of the population.
According to "the smartest man in the world" there are even more. A well-known communist claims to have been in 57 states, I think, one left to go, Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit . . . Who are we to argue?
I agree it is totally legal, this is in fact the way it was originality done in most states for the first several decades of our republic as intended by our founders.
We have compete discretion in how we select and cast our electors. There is nothing that says there need be a popular vote, except in state law. (and in a few cases State Constitution) That is simply the way most states have chosen to do it by the 1830’s.
Orginaly all States cast their electors this way, it was not until around 1830 that most states had opted for some kind of popular vote based system for selecting their electors.
I know South Carolina continued to select their electors in their legislator until they were forced to create a new constitution after the “civil war”.
It depends upon the Constitution of Ohio but otherwise having their leglsator select the electors would be completely legal and not at all unprecedented.
Indeed I recall reading about it happening before even cases where there was a popular vote.
Please remember these are Republicans you’re talking about. Hasn’t the author learned from recent history that Republicans would have the guts to even CONSIDER doing something like this!!! Race riots in Cleveland, Columbus and Cinci!!!
Yeah, right. Hell, Republicans would be more likely to overturn a win for ROMNEY and hand it to OBAMA, just to keep the MEDIA happy!!!!!!!!!!!
If vote fraud made up the difference in a few thousand votes and Obama won a second term, wouldn’t that also precipitate CW2?
!!!
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