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To: Political Junkie Too

The Founders understood that the right to a trial by jury meant that the jury could not be dictated to by the court.

Originally a Grand Jury was an entirely different body and event than it is today. It was meant to protect all individuals from illegal behavior by the court and the prosecutors. Today, it is pretty much the opposite.

So, your analogies do not apply properly to the subject at hand. There is no logical comparison to jurors and individual citizens voting for President. Again, voters are voting for Electors who claim to represent a particular nominee.

BTW, the 7th amendment makes two matters that we are discussing clear: One, that when a jury is impaneled, it is the jury that is trying the case. Therefore, the court is not coercing the jury decision. And two, that any re-examination of the facts the jury rules on must be examined according to common law. Common law does not allow the jury to be dictated to by the court.

So, your premise is defective.


248 posted on 08/25/2019 11:25:15 AM PDT by savedbygrace
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To: savedbygrace
My premise is that the Constitution offers several cases where citizens are tasked with voting (legislatively in Congress, electorally in the Electoral College, representatively at the ballot box, and judiciously on a jury). My thesis is that the vote is the property of the citizen in all cases.

We are discussing faithless Electors, those who vote against the pledge to the voters. You call it "those who claim to represent a particular nominee." I say that is a temporal thing, as Electors didn't always structure themselves this way, and there is no requirement that they must do so forevermore. In the original case where Electors were the "nobility" of their states, they were chosen to deliberate on the best candidates; they weren't pledged to any one of them, so they couldn't be faithless. They may be that way today with competing partisan slates, but the remedy is not to usurp their vote by the state.

Regarding juries, the parallel is there; it's called "jury nullification." Call it a "faithless juror," one where the jury acquits an obviously guilty defendant (OJ Simpson?) or where a holdout forces a mistrial. The opposite case, the directed verdict, is one where a defendant is deemed innocent by overwhelming evidence.

One might say that the National Popular Vote movement is a directed election, one where the state deems the winner based on overwhelming national sentiment. The NPV disenfranchises Electors entirely if the state votes opposite to the national popular vote, but is directed to go along. Should an Elector in such a state become faithless and vote the wishes of the state, as you say, or should that Elector follow the state's mandate and vote against the voters of their state?

-PJ

249 posted on 08/25/2019 12:46:26 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (The 1st Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not CNN the right to the 1st question.)
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