Posted on 07/06/2020 8:41:53 AM PDT by Jayster
WASHINGTON — The 538 people who cast the actual votes for president in December as part of the Electoral College are not free agents and must vote as the laws of their states direct, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The unanimous decision in the "faithless elector" case was a defeat for advocates of changing the Electoral College, who hoped a win would force a shift in the method of electing presidents toward a nationwide popular vote. But it was a win for state election officials who feared that empowering rogue electors would cause chaos.
The November general election is not actually a direct vote for the presidential candidates. Voters instead choose a slate of electors appointed in their states by the political parties. Those electors meet in December to cast their ballots, which are counted during a joint session of Congress in January.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
The Constitution is set in stone on this issue.
This will stick in the craw of those “li ing document” jehus, and I am quite satisfied with the SCOTUS.
No they are separate questions. Electors may be required to vote according to state law, but that doesn't mean the interstate compact is legal.
The Constitution doesn't say this.
Bump
It was 9 - 0 no less. I’m surprised it wasn’t 8 - 1 with Bush’s boy Roberts dissenting.
Well, current affairs...
The question is, how are the electors required to vote if their candidate has become a senile incontinent incompetent?
Will that DEPEND on how the individual states structure their requirements?
“a constitutional crisis.”
And i wonder who would benefit from that?
“The Court correctly determines that States have the power to require Presidential electors to vote for the candidate chosen by the people of the State.” - Thomas
Looks like the ‘Compact’ idea is DEAD !
No, that's a separate issue.
They key will be WHICH SLATE OF ELECTORS gets selected.
Do the ‘compact’ states put into place the Electors based on the slate based on the National vote?
or do they put into place the Electors for the slate based on the State vote?
To be specific, let us say that the Republican’s (R) win the popular vote in a State. That the Democrats (D) win the national vote.
We have two slates, R and D. Which one goes to the electoral college in that State? The R slate or the D slate?
Each slate will have pledged to vote for their respective candidate (now mandated).
I expect when the crisis comes, both slates will go. both slates will cast their votes. Then Congress will decide which votes to count... and the Supremes will be left to apologize for the decision.
Wonder what will become of those rulings if President Trump actually wins the popular vote?
There is no national popular vote.
Apparently you have not heard of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to which, as of March 2020, has been adopted by 15 states and the D.C. Colorado has suspended it. These 15 states comprise of 196 electoral votes. Currently, a candidate would need 270 Electoral College votes to win the Presidency.
This Compact was devised so that the Candidate with the most votes nationally would get the electoral college votes agreed to in the compact. The states are saying that they can get around this per the US Constitution where Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 states (paraphrasing) that each individual state legislature can define the method in which to appoint its electors in the Electoral college.
This is a bonafide way to steal an election since each can now mandate that all electors must vote the way the state determines, voters be damned in that state. This has not been challenged in the Supreme Court at this time but the current decision on “faithless” electors means a great deal when 73% of the total number (at least 270) of electoral votes to win are put in the hands of only 37% of states.(15 out of 50 plus the D.C.).
I firmly believe this decision leans towards the states on the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact when it is challenged in the SCOTUS, Had the decision fallen the other way, it would have meant the end to the Compact.
So technically there is not a National Popular Vote per the Constitution but with the overall votes tallied a Presidential Candidate can lose the Overall Popular vote due to population density in certain states and win the Presidency via the Electoral College. This happened 5 times (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016) since the beginning of this country.
This decision says states can enforce the choice the impanel electors to make, if they want to. That's all. It doesn't say electors have to follow the state's popular vote, it says electors have to follow state law.
No state has such a law in effect.
A few states have enacted such laws with the proviso that they will go into effect only if similar laws are enacted in states representing a majority of the electoral college. Which hasn't, and isn't going to, happen.
Well, the national popular vote is what they are trying for, at least those that are wanting to eleminate the electoral college.
Your point of whole states being disenfranchised is well taken and is why I believe that the majority vote of a congressional district should represent that district.
Yes. Several states have voted to give all their electorial votes to the nation's popular vote.
Federalist #68:
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Federalist #68 suggests that the Electoral College was meant to be filled temporarily by citizens of the United States who are free from other obligations to federal office holders. Furthermore, they were not to convene as a single body where factions might form; they were to remain local to their states and vote separately from the other states.
The risk of this case is that SCOTUS attempts to nationalize the operations of the Electoral College by ruling in such a way that forces the states into choosing electors by "will of the people" methods, where "will of the people" is really the will of the parties.
But what if a state chooses its electors by means other than a vote?
What if a state decides that its electors will be, say, the top taxpayers in the state? A state with five electors will pick its top five taxpayers, and those people will vote in the Electoral College?
In this case, there is no "will of the people" mandate for the electors, just the desires of the five most taxed people in the state.
How can the Supreme Court rule on the notion of a "faithless elector" when there is no guarantee that a state will choose a method of selecting electors based on a presumption of voting a certain way, just because they do it that way now?
-PJ
You are right. This does not give a green light to the NPV compact. That is an issue that will come before the court another day.
I suspect that the NPV compact will be ruled unconstitutional as it would nullify the reason for having the EC, which is in the constitution for a reason.
It will also be ruled unconstitutional as it disenfranchises the voters of that state. If allowed, a state could say its electors will go to the winner of California's election instead of their home state.
Still, has such interstate compact been ratified by Congress? I think it is Article2 section 4, maybe 8 wherein State are prohibited from entering into compacts etc w/o congressional approval.
Is there a federal election for potus? Nope. He several states hold elections in their state, then electors meet and send their ballot to the president of the us Senate and to the speaker of the House and to the keeper of national archives and one copy also goes to The scotus. The Congress enters each states ballots into the record and the resulrs are tabulated. Nowhere is there a xerrifed national popular vote at any level. Recall last election. Fox CNN MSNBC etc all “called” states but none were certified by any other than the several states and no final results were fact until the electoral college results were published in the federal record. This ain’t do as states please, the US Constitution, federal statue and State law all must comport....
The rule of the mob will not stand. BTW, no count of popular votes last try ever held HRC as the NPV winner. Not by my tabulation of all certified counts.
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