The Supreme Court voted unanimously Monday that Electoral College electors cannot go rogue, but must cast their ballot in accordance with the rules of their state. In 2016, a few did go rogue, in Colorado and Washington state, when they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton, the popular vote winner in those states, and voted for a write-in candidate.
This SCOTUS vote is seen as favorable to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This is an agreement among fifteen states, and the District of Columbia — so far — to award all of their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states. Enough states to represent 270 electoral votes are needed for the compact to have legal force, and even then there will probably be legal challenges such as the one that was heard by the Supreme Court today. This was a glass half full decision. The Electoral College has not been abolished but on the other hand, some constitutional ambiguity has been resolved and the NPVIC has arguably benefited, because electors cannot go rogue now. NBC News:
The November general election is not actually a direct vote for the presidential candidates. Voters instead choose a slate of electors appointed in their states by the political parties. Those electors meet in December to cast their ballots, which are counted during a joint session of Congress in January.
The court’s opinion said presidential electors must act as their states require, which in most of the nation means voting for the candidate who won the popular vote in their states. In Maine and Nebraska, presidential electors are guided by the votes of congressional districts.
If the court had ruled the other way, then individual electors who decided to vote as they wished in a close race could potentially have the power decide who wins. […]
Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who advocates Electoral College reform, told the court that nothing in the Constitution gives states any authority to restrict how an elector can vote, because they act in a federal role when meeting as the Electoral College. […]
Lessig said he hoped the controversy would encourage more states to adopt a system in which they would assign all of their electors to the candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote for president.
This is some progress. We take what we get on any given day, any step forward is welcome. This story just broke, so it will be updated, when more is determined about the impact of the court’s opinion.
What we know about the Electoral College is that it is a broken system. The Founding Fathers put it in place as a fail safe system, to prevent precisely the kind of abnormality that took place in the 2016 election. It utterly failed. So now it needs to be revamped, and as the Harvard professor said, at least now there is more clarity.
Yes, it will help. But it’s not a true fix.
“Yes, it will help. But it’s not a true fix.” ~ Tin woman1
“We take what we get on any given day, any step forward is welcome.” Ursula Faw
We probably sound pathetic. But this issue is not going to be resolved overnight. Baby steps.
It needs to be abolished completely.
I hope many of you take this opportunity to google Lawrence Lessig. The guy is, and always has been, brilliant. I’ve been following him for years, right back to when he started talking about net neutrality. And Antonin Scalia asked Lessig to clerk for him, knowing FULL WELL that Lawrence was a flaming Liberal, but contrasting that with “yeah, but he’s still brilliant”. My fantasy is that after the Democrats take over the Senate in 4 months, Schumer et al will pass one single law that impeach2es each and every judge that bastard McConnell put in over the past 4 years. And throw in Alito and Thomas while they’re at it. It will be as if McConnell’s whole life was a total waste, which in fact, it has been. And then, they put Lawrence Lessig and Lawrence Tribe on the Supreme Court, and go back and relitigate all those laws that should have been there all the time – net neutrality, Citizens United, Gun Control, Roe v Wade, etc. And don’t worry about the reaction from places like the Dakotas. They will also pass a a law that there’s really only one Dakota, and simultaneously make DC a State. NOW there’s a country human beings could live in!!!!!
I don’t like Lessig’s idea at all. According to one of the Federalist papers, on of the functions of the Electoral College was to serve as a last resort fail-safe mechanism to ensure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications,” and especially to avoid candidates with “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, ” (Federalist Papers #68) Since the electors failed their fail-safe duty, and now that the Supreme Court forbids the fail-safe mechanism, we might as well abolish the Electoral College.
This is going to be long (apologies) so bear with me:
This decision was flawed as the basis for the lawsuit was flawed logic (if you want to call it that) on the part of DEMOCRATIC electors. The reasoning behind the electors who filed or took part in the suit was that if they were “faithless” to Hillary, then *MAYBE* enough GOP electors would be “faithless” to Trump and allow Hillary (or some unknown other person) to win. What these self-absorbed idiots (who had the gall to cry that their “rights” were being infringed by the states’ all-or-nothing electoral vote decision) forgot is that (A) they WILLINGLY agreed to pledge their vote to the Democratic Presidential candidate who won their state* and (B) based on the electoral map on November 9, Trump would have to lose 36 more electors than he ended up doing** and (C), if there is no winner declared in the Electoral College, then the decision goes to the House of Representatives so their “faithless votes” would have been moot anyway. See, if the House has to decide the election, they have to use the ACTUAL STATE VOTE RESULTS to determine from which candidates they can select. The House cannot just bring in any old name they want to (unlike the “faithless electors”); its choices are limited to the actual candidates who appeared on the ballots approved by the state officials in charge of voting (meaning write-in names wouldn’t count). So, when House officials would get the final official results, of course, Trump and Clinton would be up for consideration but so would Gary Johnson and Jill Stein and Evan McMullin and Darrel Castle (Constitution Party) and Gloria La Riva (under several parties depending on the state) and Rocky de la Fuente (also representing different parties depending on the state) and the dozens of other minor party candidates who appeared on at least one state ballot. But, here’s where things get interesting: The vote in the House is done on a state-consensus basis, where “majority rules.” By that I mean, that a state with 1 Representative gets 1 vote, a state with 9 Representatives gets 1 vote, a state with 32 Representatives gets 1 vote and that “1 vote” is determined basically by “majority rules.” So, let’s say that 32-representative state has 20 GOPers and 12 Democrats, that gives the GOP candidate the edge in getting that state’s “1 vote”; 5 GOPers would have to then become “faithless electors” to deny the GOP candidate that state’s House vote (but, if the state’s voters had supported the GOP candidate in the election, the GOP House members would be hesitant to “thwart the will of the voters” since they would actually face political consequences of their own). And, looking at the map of the House’s party control on Jan 3, 2017, 32 state delegations were controlled by the GOP and 17 were controlled by the Democrats (Maine’s 2-member delegation featured 1 GOPer and 1 Democrat) while Trump won 23 of those states outright (more than 50%; he won Nebraska’s statewide vote with well over 50% but only took 47% of one of the state’s districts but still more than Clinton got) and won pluralities in 4 more (with a greater than 1% margin), leaving the 3 “controversial” states (PA, WI, MI) where the margin was less than 1%. Notably, those 3 “controversial” states are much less so in terms of the GOP leads in their House delegations on Jan 3, 2017: Michigan’s delegation was 9-5; Pennsylvania’s was 13-5; Wisconsin’s was 5-3. So, when all the state delegations would be polled, unless there were some incredibly brave GOP representatives (bearing in mind, at that point, Trump only had the “issues” those GOPers knew about from the previous fall’s campaign so any “bravery” would’ve led to political suicide in 2018), the results would’ve still been for Trump (this time, by a simple margin of 32-17; with Maine’s split delegation, and considering the state gave Trump an electoral vote based on the district vote, I can’t see the two Representatives reaching a consensus) and, more disappointing for the folks in Colorado and Virginia whose House delegations have GOP majorities but who gave Clinton plurality wins.
Additionally, since the Supreme Court interfered in the 2000 election, there’d have been an additional factor to consider with a House vote: The District of Columbia. DC voters get to vote for President in the election and the District participates in the Electoral College as though it were a state but, as it’s not a state, it has no representation in Congress (granted, its theoretical representative wouldn’t have made any real difference, but that’s beside the point) so the District’s vote in November would’ve been for naught. (Unless there’s some actual law in the US Code or it’s deeply embedded in the 23rd Amendment–which it isn’t–the matter hasn’t been addressed, though, in fairness, it’s never come up. The only time the House has been “forced” to decide the Presidency, DC had no say in electing a President.)
*The electors are usually chosen by their respective State Party officials after the Party’s National Convention but weeks prior to the November election so they *know* who they’re pledging their vote for. If they don’t want to support that candidate, then they should withdraw their names from being chosen as an elector. Plain and simple.
**Trump had 2 faithless electors in Texas. Clinton had 5. It’s worth noting that the origins of this lawsuit come from a Colorado elector pledged to Clinton but who attempted to vote for REPUBLICAN John Kasich. His vote was denied and he was replaced. Also, 3 of the electors in Washington pledged to Clinton cast their votes for REPUBLICAN Colin Powell.
I don’t mind the length,but I wish you broke it up more.
The person who wins the popular vote should be the winner . The electoral vote is out dated and doesn’t work anymore .