The Ballot Box and POTUS

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bignflnut
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The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by bignflnut »

This only applies to POTUS elections, not Senate, House, or other State elections...but to those who believe the ballot box is the current solution to the POTUS crisis, what with SCOTUS appointments, the administrative state appointments, etc...
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.”
The second part of the process happens on Election Day. When the voters in each state cast votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice they are voting to select their state's Electors. The potential Electors' names may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the Presidential candidates, depending on election procedures and ballot formats in each state.
Federal law prescribes that the members gather in their respective state capitals on “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.”
(December is after the November election, FYI)

Rest assured that the 538 people who get votes in POTUS 2020 are aware of this ruling.
Imagine all the cash spent on recruiting 538 votes. It's all a scripted reality show.
Likely your POTUS vote, same as my vote, means Jack Squat
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

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"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by SMMAssociates »

bignflnut:

My brain is on vacation, but I think this happened at least once in years past during a Presidential election.

Anybody?

Regards,
Stu.

(Why write a quick note when you can write a novel?)

(Why do those who claim to wish to protect me feel that the best way to do that is to disarm me?)

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bignflnut
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Re: The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by bignflnut »

You may be recalling the 2012 RNC Convention when Ron Paul Delagates attempted to derail the Romney coronation.

Here's a whole story on those events and how Trump took advantage of them.

We've had the RNC in 2012 "elect" a nominee via fraud, and of course the DNC in 2018 cut out Sanders against the will of the voters...but now...we get 538 votes to matter after the parties have discarded your primary vote.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by M-Quigley »

SMMAssociates wrote:bignflnut:

My brain is on vacation, but I think this happened at least once in years past during a Presidential election.

Anybody?

Regards,
If you're referring to the general presidential election and not the various party shenanigans up to the nomination process (as the R and D have different rules for the nomination process), it's one of those things that sometimes happens but hasn't yet affected a presidential election, although it could potentially be an issue someday. It allegedly did affect a vice presidential election once.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
During the 1836 election, Virginia's entire 23-man electoral delegation faithlessly abstained[3] from voting for victorious Democratic vice presidential nominee Richard M. Johnson.[4] The loss of Virginia's support caused Johnson to fall one electoral vote short of a majority, causing the vice presidential election to be thrown into the U.S. Senate for the only time in American history. The presidential election itself was not in dispute because Virginia's electors voted for Democratic presidential nominee Martin Van Buren as pledged. The U.S. Senate ultimately elected Johnson as vice president after a party-line vote.

There have been a total of 167[5] instances of faithlessness as of 2016. Nearly all have voted for third party candidates or non-candidates, as opposed to switching their support to a major opposing candidate. Ultimately, faithless electors have only impacted the outcome of an election once, during the 1796 election where Thomas Pinckney would have become the President and John Adams the Vice President.[6]

The United States Constitution does not specify a notion of pledging; no federal law or constitutional statute binds an elector's vote to anything. All pledging laws originate at the state level.[7][8]
The constitutionality of state pledge laws was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1952 in Ray v. Blair[14] in a 5–2 vote. The court ruled states have the right to require electors to pledge to vote for the candidate whom their party supports, and the right to remove potential electors who refuse to pledge prior to the election. The court also wrote:[14]

However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, § 1, to vote as he may choose [emphasis added] in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional.
— U.S. Supreme Court, Ray v. Blair, 1952

The ruling only held that requiring a pledge, not a vote, was constitutional and Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Douglas, wrote in his dissent, "no one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices."[14] More recent legal scholars believe "a state law that would thwart a federal elector’s discretion at an extraordinary time when it reasonably must be exercised would clearly violate Article II and the Twelfth Amendment".[15]

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of state laws punishing or replacing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, or refusing to count said votes.[16]
Over 22 occasions, a total of 179 electors have not cast their votes for President or Vice President as prescribed by the legislature of the state they represented. Of those, 71 electors changed their votes because the candidate to whom they were pledged died before the electoral ballot (1872, 1912). Two electors chose to abstain from voting for any candidate (1812, 2000).[4] The remaining 106 were changed typically by the elector's personal preference, although there have been rare instances where the change may have been caused by an honest mistake. Usually, faithless electors act alone, although on occasion a faithless elector has attempted to induce other electors to change their votes in concert, usually with little if any success. An exception was the 1836 election, in which all 23 Virginia electors acted together.
If you want a breakdown of years when this has occurred and who did what, there is a list. For example,
2016
Main article: Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016

7 – 2016 election: In Washington, Democratic party electors gave three presidential votes to Colin Powell and one to Faith Spotted Eagle[18] 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.[19][20]

In addition, three other electors attempted to vote against their pledge, but had their votes invalidated. In Colorado, Kasich received one vote for president, which was invalidated.[21] Two additional electors, one in Maine and one in Minnesota, cast votes for Sanders for president but had their votes invalidated; the elector in Maine was forced to cast a vote for Clinton, while the elector in Minnesota was replaced by one who cast a vote for Clinton. The same Minnesota elector voted for Tulsi Gabbard for vice president, but had that vote invalidated and given to Tim Kaine.
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cashman966
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Re: The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by cashman966 »

This ruling kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the National Popular Vote compact being pushed by liberals. If it is unconstitutional to require electors to vote according to a States popular vote it is equally unconstitutional to require them to vote according to a national popular vote.
Ignorant or Stupid, I'm not sure which is worse. If someone were stupid, at least they'd have an excuse for all the dumb things they say.

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Re: The Ballot Box and POTUS

Post by schmieg »

cashman966 wrote:This ruling kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the National Popular Vote compact being pushed by liberals. If it is unconstitutional to require electors to vote according to a States popular vote it is equally unconstitutional to require them to vote according to a national popular vote.
Well, it won't shoot that down completely until the Supremes rule in. I suspect they might uphold the decision if they decide to take it though.
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