• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Electoral College Members Can Defy Voters’ Wishes, Court Rules

Somerville

DP Veteran
Joined
Apr 29, 2012
Messages
17,816
Reaction score
8,286
Location
On an island. Not that one!
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Socialist
This NYTimes article is from August of this year. While reading more about the case, I found that only 15 of the states have laws requiring their electors to vote as the popular vote. This goes back to the days of the founding of the nation when the Founders, all members of the educated elite class, thought that choosing electors of the same class could prevent the hoi-polloi from choosing some disreputable riff-raff as president.

Electoral College Members Can Defy Voters’ Wishes, Court Rules
Aug. 22, 2019
In a ruling that kicks at the foundation of how America chooses presidents, a federal appeals court on Tuesday said members of the Electoral College, who cast the actual votes for president, may choose whomever they please regardless of a state’s popular vote.

The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver said Colorado was out of bounds in 2016 when it canceled the vote of a so-called faithless elector named Michael Baca. Mr. Baca, a Democrat, wrote in the name of John Kasich, a Republican who was Ohio’s governor at the time, even though Hillary Clinton carried Colorado, earning its nine electoral votes. The secretary of state replaced Mr. Baca with another elector who then voted for Mrs. Clinton.

The text of the Constitution makes clear that states do not have the constitutional authority to interfere with presidential electors who exercise their constitutional right to vote for the president and vice president candidates of their choice,” the court majority wrote in a split ruling by a three-judge panel.

If you can't read the NYTimes article, try this link -- Colorado’s presidential electors don’t have to vote for candidate who wins the state, federal appeals court rules

The Denver Post, Oct 16, 2019 -- Colorado seeks “urgent” decision from Supreme Court on faithless electors

IF the Supreme Court refuses Colorado's appeal or IF the Supreme Court takes the case and rules that the "original intent" of the Founders allowed those chosen as electors during a presidential election to 1) Vote as that individual wants to vote and/or 2) State legislatures in choosing the electors for their state ensure that said individuals chosen promise to vote as the legislature demands regardless of the popular vote, America will be a republic in which a limited number of citizens have the privilege of choosing a president.
 
That is the problem when you have less than a dozen electors who are unelected and unaccountable decide for the whole state of Colorado.
 
America will be a republic in which a limited number of citizens have the privilege of choosing a president.

That has always been true. From the beginning.

The electors choose the President.

Each state is assigned a certain number of electors.

Each state legislature determines how the electors are chosen. For decades, state legislatures chose them directly.

The electors have never been bound by anything but their own devices and could vote as they wished. Which, of course, became necessary when multiple ballots were required in order for a candidate to achieve a majority.

At no point has it ever been a right of the people to choose the President.

There is absolutely nothing new about any of this, but you're acting as though there is.
 
That has always been true. From the beginning.

The electors choose the President.

Each state is assigned a certain number of electors.

Each state legislature determines how the electors are chosen. For decades, state legislatures chose them directly.

The electors have never been bound by anything but their own devices and could vote as they wished. Which, of course, became necessary when multiple ballots were required in order for a candidate to achieve a majority.

At no point has it ever been a right of the people to choose the President.

There is absolutely nothing new about any of this, but you're acting as though there is.

Your argument is precisely why the state of Colorado is filing an appeal with the SCOTUS. At this time, 15 states have laws on the books saying electors must vote as the popular vote goes. There have been very few instances in which electors went against the popular vote in their state but the possibility is there. The problem in 2020 could see Republican-controlled state legislatures requiring all of their electors vote for Trump regardless of the popular vote count.

Maine and Nebraska have laws that say the electors shall vote by the popular vote in each district within the state. Maine has had this ruling since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996. Electors are awarded to each state based on the number of House seats plus the number of Senate seats. In 2016, Maine's four electoral votes were divided with 3 for Clinton and 1 for Trump. In In 2008, Nebraska gave four votes to John McCain and one to Barack Obama.
 
This NYTimes article is from August of this year. While reading more about the case, I found that only 15 of the states have laws requiring their electors to vote as the popular vote. This goes back to the days of the founding of the nation when the Founders, all members of the educated elite class, thought that choosing electors of the same class could prevent the hoi-polloi from choosing some disreputable riff-raff as president.



If you can't read the NYTimes article, try this link -- Colorado’s presidential electors don’t have to vote for candidate who wins the state, federal appeals court rules

The Denver Post, Oct 16, 2019 -- Colorado seeks “urgent” decision from Supreme Court on faithless electors

IF the Supreme Court refuses Colorado's appeal or IF the Supreme Court takes the case and rules that the "original intent" of the Founders allowed those chosen as electors during a presidential election to 1) Vote as that individual wants to vote and/or 2) State legislatures in choosing the electors for their state ensure that said individuals chosen promise to vote as the legislature demands regardless of the popular vote, America will be a republic in which a limited number of citizens have the privilege of choosing a president.

The Constitution gives the States complete control of how they choose electors. No other democracy uses the outdated practice of electoral votes. The current system makes a few "swing" States the sole determiners of the election. It should go. Then candidates will campaign in all States equally.
 
Your argument is precisely why the state of Colorado is filing an appeal with the SCOTUS.

I didn't make an argument; I stated a list of unambiguous and incontrovertible facts.


At this time, 15 states have laws on the books saying electors must vote as the popular vote goes. There have been very few instances in which electors went against the popular vote in their state but the possibility is there. The problem in 2020 could see Republican-controlled state legislatures requiring all of their electors vote for Trump regardless of the popular vote count.

Maine and Nebraska have laws that say the electors shall vote by the popular vote in each district within the state. Maine has had this ruling since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996. Electors are awarded to each state based on the number of House seats plus the number of Senate seats. In 2016, Maine's four electoral votes were divided with 3 for Clinton and 1 for Trump. In In 2008, Nebraska gave four votes to John McCain and one to Barack Obama.

It doesn't matter how many states have said laws; the Constitution has always been clear.

Perhaps you recall just a few years ago when there was an effort to stop Donald Trump from taking office by appealing to the electors to vote for someone else. Had they done so, it would have been constitutionally valid.
 
That has always been true. From the beginning.

The electors choose the President.

Each state is assigned a certain number of electors.

Each state legislature determines how the electors are chosen. For decades, state legislatures chose them directly.

The electors have never been bound by anything but their own devices and could vote as they wished. Which, of course, became necessary when multiple ballots were required in order for a candidate to achieve a majority.

At no point has it ever been a right of the people to choose the President.

There is absolutely nothing new about any of this, but you're acting as though there is.

What is new is this.....

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 8 additional states with 75 more electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK). A total of 3,408 state legislators from all 50 states have endorsed it.

The days of a few "swing states" determining our election are numbered.

Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote | National Popular Vote
 
The Constitution gives the States complete control of how they choose electors. No other democracy uses the outdated practice of electoral votes. The current system makes a few "swing" States the sole determiners of the election. It should go. Then candidates will campaign in all States equally.

No, they won't. They will pay attention to the large population centers only. There will be no reason to visit small, low-population states.
 
What is new is this.....



The days of a few "swing states" determining our election are numbered.

Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote | National Popular Vote

There's nothing about that which is relevant to anything I said.

And if you're really worried about the people of a state getting a say who becomes President, you'd recognize that this is a great way to take the vote entirely away from those people if they vote differently from the "national popular vote."
 
No, they won't. They will pay attention to the large population centers only. There will be no reason to visit small, low-population states.

There are always reasons to not visit one state or other. Why should not visiting Wyoming because it's not got a lot of people be worse than not visiting California because it's reliably Democratic? Why should the votes of Wyoming citizens count more per capita than the votes of California citizens?
 
There are always reasons to not visit one state or other. Why should not visiting Wyoming because it's not got a lot of people be worse than not visiting California because it's reliably Democratic?

Ask iguanaman. He's the one who said they'd start campaigning in "all States equally." I didn't.

Why should the votes of Wyoming citizens count more per capita than the votes of California citizens?

:shrug: Dunno. Got nothing to do with anything I said.
 
There's nothing about that which is relevant to anything I said.

And if you're really worried about the people of a state getting a say who becomes President, you'd recognize that this is a great way to take the vote entirely away from those people if they vote differently from the "national popular vote."

Everyone no matter the state, rural or urban, small city or large, north or south, has the identical "say" under a national popular vote.
 
That has always been true. From the beginning.

The electors choose the President.

Each state is assigned a certain number of electors.

Each state legislature determines how the electors are chosen. For decades, state legislatures chose them directly.

The electors have never been bound by anything but their own devices and could vote as they wished. Which, of course, became necessary when multiple ballots were required in order for a candidate to achieve a majority.

At no point has it ever been a right of the people to choose the President.

There is absolutely nothing new about any of this, but you're acting as though there is.

Do you vote? Because if you're going to argue that nobody's vote matters nor should it, then I would expect you to not even bother voting.
 
There's nothing about that which is relevant to anything I said.

And if you're really worried about the people of a state getting a say who becomes President, you'd recognize that this is a great way to take the vote entirely away from those people if they vote differently from the "national popular vote."

This argument makes no sense considering everything else you have argued, which is that nobody's vote actually counts. You say the electors choose the president, but now you're concerned about taking people's vote "entirely away."

Your posts are a total joke... :lol:
 
Everyone no matter the state, rural or urban, small city or large, north or south, has the identical "say" under a national popular vote.

Great. I was referring to the scheme igunaman referenced in his post, which is not a "national popular vote." Read.
 
Great. I was referring to the scheme igunaman referenced in his post, which is not a "national popular vote." Read.

I did - will quote from the link:

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.

So your point is it's not a national popular vote just a scheme in which everyone's votes count identically TO a national vote. OK, distinction granted!
 
I did - will quote from the link:



So your point is it's not a national popular vote just a scheme in which everyone's votes count identically TO a national vote. OK, distinction granted!

No, my point is that if the voters of a state which is part of this compact votes for a candidate who loses the "national popular vote," the voters of that state will be disregarded and the electoral votes will go a candidate that state didn't vote for. That is far more of a "disenfranchisement" than current practices for the electoral system could ever be.

Now, it would be constitutionally permissible, maybe, depending on exactly how it's set up (a state can only appoint electors, not specifically who the electors will vote for), but for all the supposed concerns about "disenfranchisement" and "every vote counting," it would disastrous in practice and probably politically unsustainable. The first time a state legislature disregarded the majority of its voters, they'd probably find themselves out of office at the very next election and the whole scheme scrapped.
 
No, my point is that if the voters of a state which is part of this compact votes for a candidate who loses the "national popular vote," the voters of that state will be disregarded and the electoral votes will go a candidate that state didn't vote for. That is far more of a "disenfranchisement" than current practices for the electoral system could ever be.

Now, it would be constitutionally permissible, maybe, depending on exactly how it's set up (a state can only appoint electors, not specifically who the electors will vote for), but for all the supposed concerns about "disenfranchisement" and "every vote counting," it would disastrous in practice and probably politically unsustainable. The first time a state legislature disregarded the majority of its voters, they'd probably find themselves out of office at the very next election and the whole scheme scrapped.

We just see it a little differently I guess. It might be because of the votes I cast, the most worthless one and the one I care the very least about actually casting, getting to the polls, is my vote for President, and it's because my state will go reliably for the Republican by huge margins. Same is true for the 4.5 million GOP voters in CA in 2016, etc.

I don't see it as disenfranchisement at all, but of enfranchisement of everyone's vote, because they all count precisely the same in determining the outcome. As it is today, TN is an afterthought at best, ignored for all practical purposes for Presidential elections.

Here's the illustration of it: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - Wikipedia

A study by FairVote reported that the 2004 candidates devoted three quarters of their peak season campaign resources to just five states, while the other 45 states received very little attention. The report also stated that 18 states received no candidate visits and no TV advertising.[8] This means that swing state issues receive more attention, while issues important to other states are largely ignored.[9][10][11]

It's also my view that the overwhelming importance of a few 'swing' states increases the risk of election fraud because the effective power to determine the President in a close election resides in just a handful of those 'swing' states, and those can be predicted in advance. Take a few dozen machines offline in some key districts within a swing state, deliberately short a bunch of voting precincts in the right area to make the lines 5 hours long in others, and that might just win a NATIONAL election. Etc.

I know downsides exist and I can see how people can in good faith disagree, but it's an easy decision for me, for lots of reasons, some of them admittedly selfish. However, the idea of one person/one vote, all of them equal, doesn't require me to make any conceivable concessions to my principles for what might be a 'partisan' advantage in THIS state in THIS era. The opposite is true if I moved somewhere where I'm in a swing state that benefits from lots of attention we might not earn, just because the population is for some random reason closely divided politically, and my community's vote is critical to the outcome nationally.

:peace
 
There's nothing about that which is relevant to anything I said.

And if you're really worried about the people of a state getting a say who becomes President, you'd recognize that this is a great way to take the vote entirely away from those people if they vote differently from the "national popular vote."

LOL Now most Americans do not have their votes count. The President is leader of all 50 States and all votes should count equally instead of just the voters in a few swing States deciding the election. Why should my vote in Florida be worth so much more than one in NY or CA?
 
LOL Now most Americans do not have their votes count. The President is leader of all 50 States and all votes should count equally instead of just the voters in a few swing States deciding the election. Why should my vote in Florida be worth so much more than one in NY or CA?

every person in every state that is a registered voter CAN vote

those votes are tallied STATE by STATE

we do not use a national count, we use 50 state counts to determine the Presidential race

that is the way it was set up...

this has been argued time and time again....

if you all want to change it....you know what has to be done

get it on the ballot, and get 75% of the states to agree to the ratification

if as you say, the EC is stupid and most people dont want it, it should be easy to pass this

but i think the flyover states may have something to say about it....dont you?
 
No, my point is that if the voters of a state which is part of this compact votes for a candidate who loses the "national popular vote," the voters of that state will be disregarded and the electoral votes will go a candidate that state didn't vote for. That is far more of a "disenfranchisement" than current practices for the electoral system could ever be.

Now, it would be constitutionally permissible, maybe, depending on exactly how it's set up (a state can only appoint electors, not specifically who the electors will vote for), but for all the supposed concerns about "disenfranchisement" and "every vote counting," it would disastrous in practice and probably politically unsustainable. The first time a state legislature disregarded the majority of its voters, they'd probably find themselves out of office at the very next election and the whole scheme scrapped.

That's ludicrous argument. The Presidential election is not a State election it is a national one. So who a "State" gives a majority is not even applicable. You can't argue that the EC doesn't give some votes more importance than others. Why is that more fair? BTW the process is automatic and nobody gives a hoot who a States majority voted for. Again it's a national election.

 
This NYTimes article is from August of this year. While reading more about the case, I found that only 15 of the states have laws requiring their electors to vote as the popular vote. This goes back to the days of the founding of the nation when the Founders, all members of the educated elite class, thought that choosing electors of the same class could prevent the hoi-polloi from choosing some disreputable riff-raff as president.



If you can't read the NYTimes article, try this link -- Colorado’s presidential electors don’t have to vote for candidate who wins the state, federal appeals court rules

The Denver Post, Oct 16, 2019 -- Colorado seeks “urgent” decision from Supreme Court on faithless electors

IF the Supreme Court refuses Colorado's appeal or IF the Supreme Court takes the case and rules that the "original intent" of the Founders allowed those chosen as electors during a presidential election to 1) Vote as that individual wants to vote and/or 2) State legislatures in choosing the electors for their state ensure that said individuals chosen promise to vote as the legislature demands regardless of the popular vote, America will be a republic in which a limited number of citizens have the privilege of choosing a president.

Rogue/faithless electors is not new and has happen more times than one can shake a stick at. Now I don't know how other states choose their electors, but here in Georgia each presidential candidate must submit his list of electors to the secretary of state prior to the election. Whoever wins the popular vote, that candidate's slate of electors cast Georgia's electoral vote. I was one of Perot's electors back in 1996.

In 2016, there were 7 such rogue or faithless electors - 7 – 2016 election: In Washington, Democratic party electors gave three presidential votes to Colin Powell and one to Faith Spotted Eagle[22] and these electors cast vice presidential votes for Elizabeth Warren, Maria Cantwell, Susan Collins, and Winona LaDuke. In Hawaii, Bernie Sanders received one presidential vote and Elizabeth Warren received one vice-presidential vote. In Texas, John Kasich and Ron Paul received one presidential vote each, and one of these electors gave Carly Fiorina a vice-presidential vote.

There was 1 faithless/rogue election in 2004, in 2000 one elector abstained. 1988 1, 1976 1, 1972 1, 1968 1. That's recent history. For the rest, here.

Faithless elector - Wikipedia

The Constitution gives each state legislature the authority to determine how it will award its electoral vote. In the early quite a lot of states had their legislature award their electoral votes without any popular vote whatsoever. Keep in mind before you condemn that, that we are a representative republic. They elected their state legislatures, their state legislature then voted and awarded their states electoral votes. It wasn't until after the civil war that all states went to the popular vote.

How do you feel about the Interstate popular vote compact which might make a state vote for the national winner against the popular vote of the people of their state.

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - Wikipedia
 
That's ludicrous argument. The Presidential election is not a State election it is a national one.

Incorrect.

The Presidential election is conducted by electors appointed in a manner chosen by state legislatures. At this time, though it is not required, every state allows the voters in the state to choose the electors from that state.
 
I'm a republican in Illinois, would any of you crusaders tell me what my vote is worth under both systems? That's right, it doesn't count in either one.
 
Back
Top Bottom