Posted on 08/21/2019 2:28:30 PM PDT by mplc51
DENVER — A U.S. appeals court in Denver said Electoral College members can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice and aren’t bound by the popular vote in their states. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution in 2016 when he removed an elector and nullified his vote when the elector refused to cast his ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote. It was not immediately clear what effect the ruling might have on the Electoral College system, which is established in the Constitution. Voters in each state choose members of the Electoral College, called electors, who are pledged to a presidential candidate. The electors then choose the president. Most states require electors to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state, but the Denver appeals court said the states do not have that authority. The Constitution allows electors to cast their votes at their own discretion, the ruling said, “and the state does not possess countervailing authority to remove an elector and to cancel his vote in response to the exercise of that Constitutional right.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
It concerns me that polls show almost half of today’s college kids are enamored of socialism, though they know next to nothing about it, and even less about capitalism.
But what is most discouraging is that there would appear to be a majority of comments on this thread disagreeing with the 10th Circuit decision, just as the Democrats will in all likelihood disagree once they convene over Facebook or Twitter or their private networks to devise a unified position most acceptable to their media cohort and detrimental to constitutional Republicans and, of course, President Trump.
And we can expect the Dems to get the most media support in their continuing crusade to destroy our republican form of government.
Are we all now supposed to cheer for popular votes, for “democracy” at the national level?
May God forbid!
I am saddened by the degree this forum has declined in recent years.
Many of us are appalled by the assumption that the Feds have power over the States in all conflicts.
‘That doesn’t ainclude you obviously...
Freepers who set their opinions above our Founders disgust me.
But in my mind, since the states are directing electorates to vote in different ways, and not always with the popular vote of the state in all fifty, they are ignoring the popular vote in different states enforcing different theories so there is no consistency with the use of the electoral college for a federal election. If the electoral college was forced to vote coinciding with the popular vote, there would be no need for them. And until a set of rules is adopted by the federal government to direct the voting actions of the electorates, who are not part of the state when voting for a federal election, then there will be no control of the elections due to state interference and not electoral voting. 3 USC Ch 1 sac 8:
“§ 8. The electors shall vote for President and Vice President, respectively, in the manner directed by the Constitution.”
It does not say the states can force electorates to vote any way at all, yet many states are doing it. And others are not.
rwood
in 2016 there were 7 faithless electors.
Thanks for the correction.
I only factored into account the two faithless “Trump” electors from Texas, which reduced his total official EVs from 306 down to 304.
Bump
frankly I think that any elector who does not follow and vote according to the popular vote as it has been traditon in his or her state will probably be shot and killed.
I think tensions are that high.
Then why don’t you explain it to me?
“The business of May next”
Read it.
Available at most libraries.
After reading that. nost agree with ny viewpoint...
The constitution says states appoint electors “as they see fit” (probably a paraphase). This doesn’t preclude adding rules for the appointment, and under the concept of the constitution as explicitly reinforced by the tenth amendment, where the constitution is silent, the states (or the people) have a free hand.
IMO, naturally.
No it doesn't, it's a back-door TO the NPV agenda. It's another way to undermine the purpose of the Electoral College which protects the rural states.
Well, if you are referring to the compact, the first thing you have to do is to define "national popular vote".
Like, who counts it? Wolf Blitzer?
Who certifies it? Rachel Maddow?
Suppose it is challenged? Who has custody of the ballots and who supervises a recount?
The whole POINT of the system is to keep all three branches of the national government out of the business of selecting the new President, which is why Bush v. Gore was such a terrible mistake.
And, go further. California, New Jersey, and New York are already devising ways to keep President Trump off the ballot in their states. According to the sole and plenary power their Legislatures have over appointing Electors, this is their perfect right.
Donald Trump got eight million votes in those three states in 2016. Subtract those votes from his 2020 "national popular vote" total, and he cannot win.
Go further. What (in the Constitution) is to prevent California and New York from requiring future candidate certification by the State Office of Social Justice?
There's no way a "national popular vote" compact can work without a Constitutional amendment to provide uniform ballot access and uniform voter qualification rules, which would have to be set by a national body - and after that, you might just as well abolish the States and be done with it.
You are not off here. It has always been the case. We have to count on the party loyalty of the electors chosen by party officials. If Romney happened to be an elector, I’m pretty sure he would screw us!
A state could declare/decide/ vote themselves as NPV states, yet on election day that very state votes for a Trump, rather than a Hillary. Who's the Trump elector likely to choose ? His personal preference AND his state's preference ? Without question. NPV destroyed.
Election of the President, though, must have a greater degree of uniformity among all states (and the District of Columbia, in recent elections) in order to be in compliance with the U.S. Constitution. Remember what happened in Florida after the 2000 election and imagine the turmoil that would result if, for example, the Democrats’ scheme to bypass the Electoral College were to achieve the requisite number of States before next year’s election and was left unchallenged ahead of the federal election.
Look out below!
Democrats are cagey about using federal laws, resources and funds to maintain power in big cities, eastern states and poverty pockets elsewhere. They will always advocate local control when it’s their folks in office locally, but it’s a rare Democrat that will turn down federal money to do things that perhaps don’t really have to be done, not now or on the scale the feds are proposing.
IMHO, it was Nixon and his “revenue sharing” scheme that opened the door to the U.S. Treasury and made possible otherwise uneconomic “investments” in cities, states and tax districts that Democrats, and even some Republicans, controlled. None of these appropriations were about forts or post roads, either. It was all about health and welfare for politicians to brag about.
At the same time these appropriations did more than anything since the Roosevelt era to strengthen and expand the role of the federal government, intruding in traditional functions of state and local governments from speed limits to zoning laws.
As not just a few state legislators have come to realize when they make occasional but futile efforts to shrink government, the states have become essentially administrative divisions of the federal government.
We’re both on the same side on this, believe me. We need to put much more effort into election security, though (voter authentication, honest ballot counts, no more ballot harvesting), or the next election could very well be our last.
I disagree. The Senate, with two senators from each state regardless of population, was to ensure that each state had equal representation. The Electoral college awards electors to states based upon the combined number of senators and representatives. That is why California has 55 electors and Montana has 3.
“I disagree.”
Well, you need to contact constitutional expert Mark Levin and straighten him out, because I heard him say the exact same thing I posted about thirty minutes later,
Of course, he went into it much deeper.
“...the states (or the people) have a free hand....”
Which is my point. If the state is allowed to determine the voting directions of the electoral people, then it becomes a controlled political process rather than the true vote of the people. And the officials of the state become the only voting process while thus overstepping and alleviating the vote of the people. And with today’s party politics rather than a voting democracy, it becomes a weapon to use against the opposite party in control of a state. And I don’t think you believe these questionable people that run states have not already used this tool.
So the founders intention to counter balance the popular vote has been turned into the weapon needed to overturn elections. We have had a number of elections over the past 50 years that the popular vote winning people were holding their breath for the end of the electoral college vote because of it’s inconsistency.
Personally, I have no idea why this idea continues in practice if not for that reason. And with today’s communication capacity and accountability, whether it’s used or not, why it remains as we no longer need it. It’s like saying we need hitching posts left in front of store fronts.
It just needs the same rules consistent with all states. As long as we play by the same rules, the game is consistent. (They should get rid of it, we’ve evolved past it)
rwood
You came away with an incomplete understanding of what Mark Levin said. The electoral college was intended to ensure that it was the states through the indirect action of the state legislatures, not the popular vote, that elected the president and vice president.
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