True, but while Trump was elected on unfounded claims and innuendo, a legal challenge to the legitimacy of open elections requires a somewhat higher standard. I’d like to see an Electoral College revolt if for no other reason than that it might actually compel the nation to actually rethink the applicability of the Electoral College and how we manage voting (allowing the states to run elections independently through a variety of obsolescent processes, often with little means of verification), but I wouldn’t bet good money on it.
While Electoral College electors are technically free to pick whomever they want (subject to state laws, of course) the reality is that they are selected by the political parties based upon the popular vote of individual states, and there is no way a bunch of GOP selected electors are going to vote Hillary Clinton into the Oval Office. It just isn’t going to happen, and would probably be a legal disaster if they did, notwithstanding how much more additional anger and outrage would result. If you think the Trumpeters are sore winners now, just wait until they were to get their Infantile Chief of Circus Peanuts invalidated by a loophole. It would reinforce everything Trump has been fraudulently claiming about the election being “rigged”.
You’re probably right. What about the fact that even before the Inauguration Trump is making it clear that he has changed his stance on many of the things the Republicans wanted him for? They bought a pig in a poke. Is it possible some of the electors may say, “Hey! This isn’t the guy we thought we were getting!”? Trump is not making much pretense of sticking to what he ran on, or even sticking to traditional Republican positions (except low taxes on the rich, of course).
I know it’s way hypothetical, and putting Hillary in at this point would probably lead to rioting in the streets. Not saying it should happen, just speculating.
The possibility of an Electoral College revolt is not so remote as to be worthy of consideration, but the far most probable result would be that enough electors vote a third candidate, creating a plurality and throwing the election to the House, which selects from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. A conspiracy by electors could select a candidate who would be more viable–smart money would be Mitt Romney–who could then be voted in by the House, but representatives would have to weight the current outrage over Trump having savaged the GOP and anger over Clinton winning the popular vote by a small but significant margin to the political and possibly social unrest of denying Trump what should be a win. This is not unprecidented; in 1836 the Electoral College voters from Virginia abstained from voting Richard Johnson for Vice President, throwing that election to the Senate (which predictably voted for Johnson anyway, and had no actual consequences in the administration) but that was due to the particular sentiment of the era (Johnson had a public and long-term affair with one of this slaves which offended the sensibilities oft these Southern ‘gentlemen’) and it is unlikely, though feasible, that whole assemblies of electors could faithlessly vote or abstain. (Abstention would still throw the vote to Trump by default, because there no third candidate and no way a GOP-dominated House is going to vote Clinton.)
There is no way Clinton stands a chance in that scenario, which must have been apparent to her campaign when she gave her concession speech. Hillary Clinton being elected president is a possibility that exists only in an alternate reality at this point.
If they did cast votes for a second Republican it wouldn’t be Romney. That actually would cause a revolt among Trump supporters. Mike Pence is the most logical place for anti-Trump conservative electors to go. Then Senate Republicans can select an entirely new VP more to their liking, probably one of their own, like Rob Portman.
On this same page, items about how Donald is issuing orders (like canceling the new Air Force One) via Twitter. And plenty of Americans (you can read the article and decide for yourself how many “plenty” is) think he is tweeting too much. Well, this guy doesn’t take orders or even suggestions from anyone… so I guess, it’s gov’t by tweet from now on.
In theory, if Trump gets <270, the House GOP could be split between Trump and, say, Pence, and that split would enable a Hillary victory if the GOP delegations are pretty evenly split.
Although there is technically no requirements on how Presidential Executive Orders are published or promulgated, the orders are typically presented as a written order to a specific executive body regarding overarching policy. There is no precedent for giving executive direction by 140 character electronic messages other than emergency communication channels, and any ‘responsible’ Cabinet secretary or agency director would and should request explicit documented orders. The President only has direct authority for discretionary spending of White House operations and transportation budget; technically the order for discretionary spending by departments and agencies should come from the department head or director, so the order cancelling procurement of a new Air Force One aircraft should come from the Secretary of Defense (since the procurement is by the US Air Force), and would have to comply with the FAR rules and contractual requirements for termination of an ongoing acquisition. I’m not familiar with the Air Force One replacement contract but termination clauses often cost as much or more than completion of the contract through a given milestone phase.
It is clear that Trump is not even casually aware of how the Office of the Presdient or governance of the country works, and this was just an off-hand message to get attention, but we can only hope that the continued stream-of-consciousness directives will cause Congress to more explicitly define and reign in the executive authority to establish a protocol for future executives.
Since we’re going with fantasy scenarios (the GOP would rather gnaw off their collective left testicle than allow Clinton to become president) I’ll note that the Senate votes for the vice president in the case of split votes (Electoral College voters usually vote the same ticket for president and vice president but can’t vote the same person to both offices, so a split on president would likely mean some kind of split for vice president), for which Pence would almost certainly get the VP slot. Leaving the country with a Hillary Clinton/Mike Pence administration, which like a sea urchin is pretty much stabby in every direction you approach it.
The EC voting against Trump (or Clinton, ftm) is executing their constitutional duty. In my perfect world, the EC would vote in Bernie Sanders and out Trump.
But in any case, IMO the correct result is for us to respect the vote of the EC (99%+ likely to be Trump)) and in the next couple of years do whatever is legislatively necessary to eliminate the EC altogether.
But the replacement rules must somehow be written in that someone who wins by millions of votes must WIN.
While it would take extremely large quantities of finite Improbability to bring about that scenario, it’s fun to speculate: just how many minutes would it take, after the swearing-in, for the first impeachment resolution to be filed?
Eliminating the Electoral College is more than just a legislative action; it would require amending the US Constitution which mandates either supermajority support in both the House of Representatives and Senate, or a constitutional convention called by at least 34 states. The practicality of this occurring is essentially nil. Nor does it really make sense to adopt a purely popular vote majority in a winner-takes-all scenario since that would place the selection squarely in the hands of a few high population states (and more critically, in the hands of the largest cities), all but disenfranchising rural areas, which is a recipe for unrest. It is important to understand that one significant aspect of the vote is to make people feel as if they have input, and therefore buy into the system even if they don’t like the result. Effectively eliminating the impact of the “lower third” of the population is just as disenfranchising as making restrictive voter ID laws.
That the current system, and especially the way it is promoted and viewed, results in a highly polarizing dichotomy or else splits votes between more moderate factions and in effect giving the election who whomever is able to swing key voter demographics, is a result of how the original authors of the Constitution did not anticipate future developments. This is not a new problem, nor is it solvable by just throwing the system out in favor of a straight popular vote. Politics by nature is factional and decisive, and trying to force a this-or-that option does not represent the spectrum of opinion needed to make the majority of voters feel as if their opinion is represented.
And if your argument stems from the “Hillary should have won!” line of reasoning, I’ll point out again that in fact the Democrats should have clutched the presidency easily against an unpopular buffoon except that they also ran a candidate with record breaking public unfavorability. A decent Democratic presidential candidate with broad appeal should have won; Clinton lacked such appeal, selected a running mate on the basis of party loyalty and not outshining her instead of enhancing appeal, and ran a poorly focused, lackluster campaign that was constantly derailed by accusations of malfeasance that while exaggerated when not outright manufactured were predictable and that they should have been better prepared to fend off. That Trump was effectively able to use the press and his social media to divert the public discussion from the reality that he had not plans or coherent policies and sell nonsense messages about returning the nation to some hypothetical level of “greatness” or combat the virtually inconsequential threat of immigrants was outside of their control (and the media rightfully is deserving of scorn for not more consistently questioning the validity of that message and checking the non-facts beyond them), but regardless, Trump should never have even been close to winning, even setting aside his major personal gaffs. “Fixing” the Electoral College to match the popular vote doesn’t really address the fact that both parties ran unlikeable candidates, and in such a race the public makes up their minds based more on who they distrust more rather than the facts of policy.
Clinton would have to do something in office that would be an impeachable offense (e.g. a “high crime or misdemeanor”) and while there is no real standard for what this would have to be, even a vote along party lines would not result in conviction and removal from office. It is questionable that enough House Republicans would vote for impeachment on a flimsy manufactured pretense. Despite the fact that by all appearances the inmates have taken over the GOP, there is still enough of a contingent of moderates and party oppositional to not just reflexively agree to every stupid thing the leadership wants.
The EC can’t be done away with without support from a significant number of low-population red states such as the swath of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, the 2 Dakotas, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alaska, Alabama, etc. You’d likely need at least some of them to agree to it. They would be highly unlikely to, because the EC works in their favor and weights their presidential vote in their favor.
The electoral college doesn’t so much weight elections in low population states’ favor as it allows them at least a voice, which they wouldn’t have if large population centers such as southern California and the upper East Coast were allowed to determine the course the country follows. Both regions clearly have different interests and concerns and neither should be allowed to permanently control the course of events. The U.S. is a federation of quasi-independent states in which each has a certain degree of self rule and a meaningful role in determining how the country is governed. This would be completely undone by allowing the country’s large population centers to call the shots for everyone else. The only time these so-called ‘flyover’ states seem to have things weighted in their favor is when they all happen to vote the same way, as in the last election. However they don’t always vote the same way or always to the Democrats’ disadvantage. Obama having been elected twice demonstrates that.
Diverting the attention of the public–and more importantly, of those members of the public who are electors–is crucial in these days leading up to the December 19 vote.
Thus we get Flag Burning and China-baiting Phone Calls and today, this “Hero of the US Budget, Sacrificing His Own New Plane For AMERICA!!!11!!” posturing.
Anything rather than letting the media and the public cogitate on the questions of How Much Loot Will Trump Amass? and What Do All These Military-Guy Cabinet-Level Appointments Mean?
They are worried.
Stabby: perhaps. But less likely to be an extinction-level event than is our present prospect.
Yeah, but california and new york also have different interests than each other. They will not be dominating the EC, as they will be splitting their vote. Just because it’s a city doesn’t mean it’s a monolith. How upset are people when rurals get thrown together as a single voting block. Why do you feel justified doing it to populations that are both much larger and more diverse?
The senate was supposed to be the small states spot to shine. Not the EC, not the house. The “Great Compromise” was only for the senate.
Because we decided to limit the number of reps to 435, rather than keeping the proportional, the small states voter has more power in not just the senate, but in the house and the presidency.
Fixing this doesn’t need to change the constitution, in fact, it goes back to the original reading of the constitution, rather than the simple law that limits the number of reps to 435. If we went with the original ratio of one rep for every 30,000, then we’d have over 10,000 representatives. The small states advantage in the EC and house would be diluted, though they’d still keep their disproportionate influence in the senate.
Which is why it is necessary to ignore his stupid tweeting and focus on the actions of Trump and his Assemblege of Assholes, and particularly to focus on all the ways they are doing things that are in diametrical opposition to the “platform” that Trump campaigned upon.
Except, of course, for SNL skits. Anything that keeps Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon in comedic sauce for another four years is worth it.
Right. In order to ratify a popular-vote amendment you need the consent of 38 states; to call a Constitutional Convention you need 34. A quick sloppy calculation tells me that the states with 6 or fewer electors benefit the most from the weighted EC vote, and there’s 20 of those.
(throw in WV, VT, ME and NH for good measure among the big beneficiaries of things as they are.)
I wouldn’t mind having a representative that represents me and 29,999 other people, rather than nearly a million. It could make the govt much more accessible.
Logistically, it may be a problem if we feel they all need to be in the same room in the capital, but if it’s really necessary, we can build them a big enough room to fit them all, we have the technology.
I’d also be for electing them at large in the states, with the top vote getters being the “senior” members of the states delegations, but with every member ultimately having the same vote, but that’s a whole different discussion.
