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To: who_would_fardels_bear

There is nothing in this about “the electoral system” being trumped by anything, Section 1 Clause 2 of the US Constitution reads: “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: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”

There is nothing in the Constitution about allocating electors committed to a Presidential candidate a on a winner-take-all basis, that is simply the system the legislatures of most of the several states have chosen to use (Maine and Nebraska being the current exceptions). In theory a legislature could decide to chose electors itself, rather than on the basis of a popular vote, though I’m sure such a decision would be sufficiently unpopular as to be politically infeasible.


13 posted on 09/19/2011 6:23:02 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: The_Reader_David
There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the electors have to be chosen by a vote of the people--as late as 1860 South Carolina did not do it that way. A state with a heavily Democratic legislature could pass a law that the electors would be chosen by the members of the state legislature.

It was with reference to rural Pennsylvania voters that Obama made his comments in 2008 about voters who clung to their guns and religion. James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between.

14 posted on 09/19/2011 6:40:21 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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