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Supreme Court rules states can remove 'faithless electors'

bigun

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https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...rt-rules-states-can-remove-faithless-electors

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 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.

A handful of electors had cast their votes in 2016 for people who did not win their states' popular votes in a failed attempt to deny President Trump an Electoral College majority. In the final vote tally, just seven of the 538 electors successfully chose someone other than their state's popular vote winner.

Three Democratic electors in Washington state voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell instead of Hillary Clinton, hoping that Republican electors would follow suit. The state fined them $1,000 each, prompting a legal challenge from the three officials, who argued that the state law restricting their Electoral College vote was unconstitutional.

The court also heard a similar challenge from a Democratic Colorado elector who was removed for casting his vote for former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) instead of Clinton. In light of the decision from the Washington state case, the court reversed an appeals court decision siding with the Colorado elector.

"Today, the United States Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed the fundamental principle that the vote of the people should matter in choosing the President," Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) said in a statement. "If we had not been successful, many observers, including several justices, noted the upcoming elections could have been thrown into ‘chaos.’"

Monday's decision comes four months before another presidential election and could hamper any potential effort to sway electors into defying the popular vote in their states. Thirty-two states and D.C. have laws requiring their electors to abide by the outcome of the election. But only 11 of those states, including Colorado, have laws allowing them to nullify faithless electors' votes or remove them from office.

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and activist who represented the electors, said he was disappointed in the decision, adding that it eliminated some uncertainty around the nation's process for choosing a president.

"When we launched these cases, we did it because regardless of the outcome, it was critical to resolve this question before it created a constitutional crisis. We have achieved that. Obviously, we don’t believe the Court has interpreted the constitution correctly. But we are happy that we have achieved our primary objective — this uncertainty has been removed. That is progress."

Lessig has been an outspoken critic of the Electoral College because candidates who lose the nationwide popular vote can still win the presidency if they garner enough electoral votes from each state, as was the case in the 2000 election of George W. Bush and in 2016 with Trump.

Lessig was open about his disdain for the system in bringing the challenge and he argued that the purpose of the Electoral College was to allow for state representatives to exercise their discretion when choosing a president.
But in the majority opinion on Monday, Kagan wrote that the Constitution's framers could have explicitly required electors to have autonomy but declined to do so.

"All that they put down about the electors was what we have said: that the States would appoint them, and that they would meet and cast ballots to send to the Capitol," Kagan wrote. "Those sparse instructions took no position on how independent from—or how faithful to—party and popular preferences the electors’ votes should be. On that score, the Constitution left much to the future."
 
Good. Because I could see a bunch of them throwing their vote behind somebody other than Trump due to the butthurt in November.
 
you know Roberts wanted to change the defendants arguments so badly and just write his opinion where he does away with the electoral college, all together.


Next step is this interstate voting pact. it needs to get unanimously destroyed by the SCOTUS. im fearful it wont though, and Joe biden will replace breyer and ginsburg with Kamala Harris and MIchelle Obama, then add two more justices for a total of 11, that will be Rashida Talib and AOC.
 
you know Roberts wanted to change the defendants arguments so badly and just write his opinion where he does away with the electoral college, all together.


Next step is this interstate voting pact. it needs to get unanimously destroyed by the SCOTUS. im fearful it wont though, and Joe biden will replace breyer and ginsburg with Kamala Harris and MIchelle Obama, then add two more justices for a total of 11, that will be Rashida Talib and AOC.

I agree about the interstate voting pact, but i'm a little bit concerned that this ruling will be used by folks who want to destroy the electoral college. mixed thoughts
 
you know Roberts wanted to change the defendants arguments so badly and just write his opinion where he does away with the electoral college, all together.


Next step is this interstate voting pact. it needs to get unanimously destroyed by the SCOTUS. im fearful it wont though, and Joe biden will replace breyer and ginsburg with Kamala Harris and MIchelle Obama, then add two more justices for a total of 11, that will be Rashida Talib and AOC.

Shudder...
 
I agree about the interstate voting pact, but i'm a little bit concerned that this ruling will be used by folks who want to destroy the electoral college. mixed thoughts


right, the bad side of this could be that an elector doesnt want to abide by the interstate pact, because it violates the constitution, and is forced to by a "pact state".
 
right, the bad side of this could be that an elector doesnt want to abide by the interstate pact, because it violates the constitution, and is forced to by a "pact state".

kind of fucked that it will NEED TO HAPPEN before SCOTUS will review it. just like this wasn't challenged until defectors voted and were fined. nauseating.
 
kind of fucked that it will NEED TO HAPPEN before SCOTUS will review it. just like this wasn't challenged until defectors voted and were fined. nauseating.

well yeah, but becasue that would directly effect an election, if it does happen, SC would hear that immediately, just like in 2000 with Florida and the Chads and all.
 
well yeah, but becasue that would directly effect an election, if it does happen, SC would hear that immediately, just like in 2000 with Florida and the Chads and all.

and yet somehow people continue to vote for that program. it's insane, isn't is something like 20 states now that flat out have signed off on "our state doesn't matter"
 
and yet somehow people continue to vote for that program. it's insane, isn't is something like 20 states now that flat out have signed off on "our state doesn't matter"

im not certain all people are voting for it. i think in the majority of states its being passed as law by the state legislatures. i havent looked into it, but i dont know how many have put it on the ballot.
 
you know Roberts wanted to change the defendants arguments so badly and just write his opinion where he does away with the electoral college, all together.

Next step is this interstate voting pact. it needs to get unanimously destroyed by the SCOTUS. im fearful it wont though, and Joe biden will replace breyer and ginsburg with Kamala Harris and MIchelle Obama, then add two more justices for a total of 11, that will be Rashida Talib and AOC.

Reading that sent a chill down my spine :barf:
 
you know Roberts wanted to change the defendants arguments so badly and just write his opinion where he does away with the electoral college, all together.


Next step is this interstate voting pact. it needs to get unanimously destroyed by the SCOTUS. im fearful it wont though, and Joe biden will replace breyer and ginsburg with Kamala Harris and MIchelle Obama, then add two more justices for a total of 11, that will be Rashida Talib and AOC.

Supreme Court said in rulings in the 60’s they wanted to do away with it. Read “let the people pick the president”. Doing away with electoral college will make a lot of sense after the next census for republicans. The shoe at some point will be on the other foot.
 
Supreme Court said in rulings in the 60’s they wanted to do away with it. Read “let the people pick the president”. Doing away with electoral college will make a lot of sense after the next census for republicans. The shoe at some point will be on the other foot.

bold projection, but highly unlikely with the mega city system push and its deep rooted hatred of individual liberty.

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Compact ensures that every vote, in every state, will matter in every presidential election. The Compact is a state-based approach that preserves the Electoral College, state control of elections, and the power of the states to control how the President is elected.

The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 16 jurisdictions possessing 196 electoral votes, including 4 small states (DE, HI, RI, VT), 8 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, NJ, NM, OR, WA), 3 big states (CA, IL, NY), and the District of Columbia. The bill will take effect when enacted by states with 74 more electoral votes. The bill has passed at least one chamber in 9 additional states with 88 more electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK, VA). A total of 3,408 state legislators from all 50 states have endorsed it.

The shortcomings of the current system of electing the President stem from “winner-take-all” laws that have been enacted by state legislatures in 48 states. These laws award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state.

Because of these state winner-take-all statutes, presidential candidates have no reason to pay attention to the issues of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone conclusion. In 2012, as shown on the map, all of the 253 general-election campaign events were in just 12 states, and two-thirds were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa). Thirty-eight states were completely ignored.
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation

of course, they claim that cities don't have an outsized effect :rasta: :shaking:
 
Also something I was unaware of was the electoral college wasn’t so small states would have more power. It was really about southern states getting more power with the 3/5’s compromising playing in this as well. This was one of the last things the founders agreed upon.
 
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