I argue that the state cannot order by fiat how anybody can vote, including Electors.
If they can, it's not a vote.
.jpg/220px-PRK,_Nepal_236_(5076758792).jpg)
A propaganda poster in Pyongyang
with the slogan "Let's all vote yes!"
("모두다 찬성투표 하자!")
Posted on 07/06/2020 7:32:02 AM PDT by jazusamo
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can prohibit their Electoral College representatives from disregarding voters when casting their ballots in presidential elections.
The unanimous decision, arising out of a case from Washington state, essentially gives states the right to outlaw "faithless electors" who cast their votes for people other than those chosen by their voters.
"Nothing in the Constitution expressly prohibits States from taking away presidential electors’ voting discretion as Washington does," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority decision.
--This breaking news report will be updated.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Well put!
If you read the words of Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #84, I think he intended as I wrote -- that the states would select Electors as a caucus of leading thoughtful people. That is NOT how it's done today.
Today, the candidates assemble slates of partisan electors who run as a bloc (represented by the candidate's name on the ballot). The winning candidate gets to send his bloc of electors to the Electoral College.
I would like to see electors run on their own merits and NOT as a party slate. I wouldn't mind a system where electors run independently in each Congressional district, and the voters choose their own electors one by one - no statewide slates. The state legislature can choose the two electors who represent the Senate Electoral College votes.
-PJ
What’s interesting to me is that Kavanaugh, Alito and Roberts went along with her and Thomas and Gorsuch agreed as well but for different reasons.
It's a constructionist ruling, but that would mean nothing to the bulldagger and the rest of the lefties.
That assumes that a change of location will not bring about a change of attitude. People living in congested, urban coastal areas lean left. People living in wide open spaces where they must rely on themselves and their neighbors lean right. Suburbs are swing areas. None of these attitudes are immutable, and to the extent that they are influenced by environment, they can change.
I’m actually not very surprised it was unan, there wasn’t much of an argument for the other side. Even wacko Lessig was all like “whatevs I don’t even care, now let me segue into advocating for the poopular vote”.
No, that was not a typo, I said “poopular”.
I can neither see it getting over the hump nor being upheld if it did.
There is of course no such thing as a national popular vote, they may be easy enough to add together but they are not added together and certified in any fashion by the federal government. Does the legislation call for using AP numbers?
I argue that the state cannot order by fiat how anybody can vote, including Electors.
If they can, it's not a vote.
A propaganda poster in Pyongyang
with the slogan "Let's all vote yes!"
("모두다 찬성투표 하자!")
That sounds like a great idea!
Americans...still looking for perfection.
Our faulty system is still the best though.
Someone gave me a copy of the Federalist Papers for Christmas. Now, I can refer.
Thanks.
Then I noticed it was printed in China!
https://shop.crackerbarrel.com/collections/american-heritage/we-the-people-book/527148
Amazing. We must do something about this.
Maybe you remember some years ago, when we learned that Rockefeller Center Building was purchased by the Japanese.
It was THEN that America AWAKENED and we all but went nuts.
Well, that transaction was reversed. Wake up, you guys.
Yeah but Kagan WROTE the opinion for the majority.
There is nothing in the Constitution that forbids the states from directing the electors how to vote.
did this just kill the compact ?
Thanks for the link.
“Held: A State may enforce an elector’s pledge to support his party’s nominee—and the state voters’ choice—for President. “
too late for a state to take corrective actions against a faithless elector once those sealed ballots are opened in Congress and counted.
A useful but very misleading chart. The table at the same page shows the details of actions by the states and it tells a different story. It’s telling that a Red State is yet to passed the NPV into law. A number of Blue States aren’t close to passing it. I don’t think that they have the votes to reach the 270 EV thresehold and the media efforts to convince us otherwise is weak.
If the ballot is secret and the Elector who voted is not known, then how does the state know which Elector to replace?
Are Electors' ballots public information? I don't think so. Article I says that Congress must record the yeas and nays, but it says nothing about the Electoral College.
Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist #68 says:
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... 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.
This suggests to me that the ballots of Electors were to be kept secret, so that nobody would know which Elector voted for which candidate.
How can a state take action in this case?
-PJ
If the ballot is secret and the Elector who voted is not known,
Are Electors’ ballots public information? I don’t think so.
Article I says that Congress must record the yeas and nays, but it says nothing about the Electoral College.
-PJ
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