[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The point was that the legislature does not dictate how electors vote. The state legislatures are not authorized to “direct” its electors to vote for or against any candidate.

Given the Senators/Reps do not vote themselves as electors, they would, in effect, appoint them, recommending their party’s most active local folks to vote in their stead. Only the most partisan citizens ever get to be electors for either side. It’s all very ‘inside politics.’

. . . which generally turns out to be a distinction without a difference.

I am saying that a given state could, at the direction of its legislature, create a ballot without any electors who are pledged to Barak Obama. Or it could direct a particular Republican to name the electors - say, the governor, if s/he is a Republican, without any popular vote at all for the office of elector.

'Course any state whose legislature was ticked off enough to do that presumably would be so solidly Republican that there wouldn't be much doubt of the outcome of a popular vote, either . . .

I just kind of like the states' rights principle of the thing.

[EDINVA]

IF I understand your idea, a state legislature could essentially keep an otherwise qualified candidate* for federal office off the ballot? Or deny a qualified candidate any electors supportive of him?

(*presumably qualified - we’ll put aside the entire eligibility issue for purposes of this discussion)

If your concept is what I am inferring, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find even one state legislator of any party or stripe in any state to support it. The repercussions would be too far reaching and no doubt unconstitutional.

I doubt it’s within the purview of a state legislature to keep a qualified candidate for federal office (or his electors) off ballots within the state. I think there’s a whole other process for determining who is eligible to be on the ballot, i.e., thru the various Secretaries of State. Some third-party candidates are on some state ballots but not others. The various states’ legislatures are to determine only how electors are chosen, now who can or can’t be on the ballot.

Now, presumably a state legislature could designate the governor to appoint all electors, and he could appoint ‘faithless’ electors for the opponent, but that would be political suicide without getting into legalities.

I don’t see it as a states rights issue at all. And that’s the beauty of it: states like LA are not, and never were, likely to elect Obama.