Posted on 05/15/2018 8:41:49 PM PDT by TBP
On May 7, the plaintiffs filed this 40-page brief in League of United Latin American Citizens v Abbott, w.d. Texas, 5:18cv-175. This sets forth why the plaintiffs believe that the winner-take-all system for choosing presidential electors in 48 states violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
There are similar cases pending in three other states. It just happens that the Texas case is the first one in which the plaintiffs have set forth their legal argument. All four cases have the same high-powered law firms working for the plaintiffs.
Yes. Many states early on had the legislature pick their electors so there wasn't a popular vote. South Carolina didn't chose their electors by popular vote until 1868.
Article II, Section 1: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.
Frivolous.
Though part of me wishes every state gave them out by congressional district. For example, California has fifty-five electoral votes. The winner of each of its fifty-three congressional districts gets one electoral vote per district won, and the statewide popular vote winner gets the two electoral votes represented by its Senators. That way, Republicans can be relevant in California and New York and Democrats in the South.
Plus it’d be funny to see pundits’ electoral maps built around all 435 congressional districts in addition to the fifty states.
That is not what is being chsllenged.
Absolutely that is what is being challenged.
“Absolutely that is what is being challenged.”
Read the frigging brief! Geez!
Romney would have won over 280 EVs and the presidency in 2012 if that system was in effect.
In our Republican system, states not individuals elect the president.
The Founders set it up that way quite deliberately. Its absurd to think this violates any constitutional amendment.
They are asking for a racial/political division of electoral votes.
” The Supreme Court, however, has
made clear the government may not dilute the votes of political or racial minorities by wasting
their votes in at-large, multi-member elections in which the majority is likely to run the table.”
Since when has that mattered to the Left?
These idiots should be laughed out of court and then made to pay all court costs for engaging in sedition.
I actually agree with this brief, if it results in the following:
Electoral votes being awarded on a district-by-district basis. One vote per district. The remaining 2 electoral votes in each state being awarded to the winner of the popular vote in the state.
This way, minority-dominated district’s votes count [generally DEM] and, in blue states, GOP-DOMINATED districts have their votes counted too.
Trump won 230 of 436 districts. Add the 60 votes representing the 30 states he won and his total would have been 290 using the district method.
Yes, surprisingly less than he actually won. Trump won fewer CDs than Romney.
“This violates the constitutional principle of ‘one person, one
vote’ under the Fourteenth Amendment”
“In addition to these constitutional violations, Texas’s WTA law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it results in Hispanics and African-Americans ‘hav[ing] less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.’”
These two arguments contradict each other. African-American are like every other voter. They get one vote each. Their votes count exactly the same as everyone else.
A significant percentage of African-American voters are starting to support Donald Trump. There votes would count less (in the same way the plaintiffs are arguing that other African-Americans experience now) if “winner-take-all” was struck down.
The “winner-take-all” approach does give more clout to the majority in a state, but no individual is disenfranchised of his or her right to participate in the process. Every individual has the exact same voting power, as it should be.
The only way the logic of the Plaintiffs could be validated is if the comparison is made between the voting power of individuals in one state not being equal to the voting power of individuals in another state. This is because in every scenario within a state, you have winners and losers. And not being in the majority means being a loser in a democratic election by definition. But this is innate to the electoral college and the Constitutional provision for states determining their own methodology.
Some blacks vote Republican. Some whites vote Democrat. All ethnicities vote all kinds of ways. Many people choose not to vote at all.
The arguments being used are a bait and switch in which individual votes and collective voting preferences are interchanged whenever it best suits the arguments of the Plaintiff.
Hispanics and African-Americans still get one vote each. Just like any other cross section of society, they do not get to put their thumb on the scale because they are a minority.
Imagine applying the same logic to any category of people. For example, let’s suppose plant workers almost universally vote a certain way. And let’s also suppose that the majority in their state tend to vote in a different way. Well, the plant workers are not in the majority and will not win the elections in which the majority votes differently from them. This is not discriminatory. It is the precise way democratic elections work.
The founders did not create a coalition government. They specified an electoral college which is allocated as states choose.
LULAC is for Hispanics only. In other words, it is just as racist as La Raza.
Can we get it designated as a “hate group”? Calling Southern Poverty Law Center. Can you help? No, you don’t go after anti-American groups. OK, comrades.
Leftist: “The Constitution is unconstitutional!”
Collusion.
Conspiracy.
Authoritarianism.
Democrat elected = Winner take all
Republican elected = Court determines Winner take all is illegal.
Repeat.
CONSERVATIVES ARE SOOOO STUPIT!
Isn't that what the 17th amendment did to the Senate, which was previously also determined by the state legislatures just like with the Electoral College?
Lmo56 wrote: This way, minority-dominated district’s votes count...
Why should it matter when the people don't vote for the President, the states do?
unlearner cited: “This violates the constitutional principle of ‘one person, one vote’ under the Fourteenth Amendment” “In addition to these constitutional violations, Texas’s WTA law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it results in Hispanics and African-Americans ‘hav[ing] less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.’”
The problem with this thought is that it supports the discarding of federalism and the conversion of the United States of America into Factional America. The Electoral College is to the Executive branch what the Senate was to the Legislative branch. If we hadn't drifted so far from the original intention of federalism, this wouldn't be an issue, as there would be no votes to be suppressed.
In federalism, the states are the sovereign government entities of the people. The federal government exists to manage interstate and collective state vs foreign interests. The federal government was never meant to involve itself in the daily lives of the people; that was the role of the state legislatures and the governors.
In federalism, the people voted directly for their representatives in the House, and the state legislatures voted for their representatives in the Senate. Furthermore, the legislatures voted on how to choose electors to the Electoral College for selecting the President of the Executive branch of the federal government, since the federal government was there to serve the state governments as the state governments served the people. The people vote for their state legislators in part based on whom they support for the Senate.
The 17th amendment destroyed federalism in Congress by disconnecting the Senators from the body they represent, that is, the states. There was a symmetry to the people voting for state legislators and federal representatives, and then state legislators in turn vote for Senators. Congress then represents the interests of the people via the House, and the interests of the states via the Senate.
Lawsuits like this and ploys like the National Popular Vote movement are attempts to destroy federalism in the Executive, by bypassing the sovereignty of states and subordinating their unique votes to the will of the population-at-large.
The people were never intended to vote directly for the President, as the President was there to resolve interstate disputes and represent foreign policy collectively for the states. Today, federalism is upside-down. The Senate represents the federal parties first, and the states last. The President serves narrow special-interest groups of the people first, and the states last.
Bypassing the Electoral College through schemes like the National Popular Vote movement or attempts to strip states of their constitutional authority to choose, are a power play by special interests of people to take the selection of the President away from the states and give it to the powerful few, using the ruse of "one person, one vote" as the lure.
-PJ
The founders did not create a coalition government. They specified an electoral college which is allocated as states choose.
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Your reply is correct but there are many states now trying to subvert the Constitution by having a compact between states to award all their electors to the person who wins the majority of votes in the Union, not the state. They would in the last election have awarded all the electors in their state to Hillary Clinton even if she had not received a single vote in their state. There are those who say it is up to the state to determine how they award those votes in their state but if my state were in the Compact I would sue to say my vote did not count.
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