Is there any legal merit to this?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/presidential-electors-lawsuit-trump-232255
Most constitutional scholars are in agreement that faithless elector laws are not enforceable. I don’t know whether or not it is meritorious to argue the case before any such enforcement is attempted, however.
It’s also tough for them to claim standing, when they’re (presumably) not the ones who intend to vote otherwise.
Time is not on their side … 12 and 1/2 days to go :eek:
Also, they haven’t been actually harmed yet. I’m not a law-talking guy, but aren’t you supposed to demonstrate harm, or imminent harm? Seems like a court would think that even if they decided to vote for Bernie Sanders or whomever, that there’s a good chance that the state would not prosecute.
The article says that they’re being forced to vote for Clinton, so it sounds to me like they may be Sanders supporters who are being forced to vote for Clinton.
And I’m not sure that’s even important. If my state passed a law that said I had to have sex with Salma Hayek twice a week, pretty sure I’d have standing even if the law didn’t particularly distress me.
So some people want to stop Trump, ‘because the popular vote is merely advisory’; and others seek to stop Trump because he didn’t win the popular vote.
Goodness.
It’d be a damned shame if you didn’t.
As I understand it, the “enforcement” in those states that mandate faithful electors is no more than a civil penalty – i.e.- a nominal fine. The only states where it truly matters are just the two (I believe) where electors who don’t vote as required don’t get their vote counted.
So it would seem the electors in all other states except those two can in theory vote how they want, and face either nominal civil penalties or no consequences at all.
It would also turn the whole democratic process on its ear if large numbers of electors defected. I just don’t see it happening regardless of how this court case turns out.
So the electors are, in effect, arguing for an oligarchy? That seems rather illiberal.
Among other positions.
It’s not a democratic process, so by all means let’s turn it on its ear. I’m not a fan of chaos, but this election was an endorsement if it. A constitutional crisis would be acceptable if it led to the destruction of the Electoral College.
Only if you would also consider our justice system to be an oligarchy.
Imagine if juries would be fined if they failed to vote in accordance with the judge, or in accordance with town-wide polling based on tabloid articles instead of having sat in the court and heard the arguments and seen the evidence. I think we should be able to agree that the first is antithetical to the ideals of the nation, and the latter simply stupid.
Tasking individuals, temporarily, to donate their time to do research and become informed, so that they can make a reasoned and impartial, one-time decision is not an oligarchy. It’s not necessarily the best system, but it’s certainly a reasonable one and better than the proposed alternatives.
To you, would it be worth a civil war to eliminate the Electoral College?
A constitutional crisis would be acceptable if it prevented an unqualified buffoon from taking office, but it ain’t gonna happen, despite the fact that such erratic behavior by the masses was precisely why the EC was created and written into the Constitution. The effective popular vote weighting created by the EC is not significantly different than that created by seat/riding distributions in parliamentary systems, and anyway, worrying about the long term of the EC at this point is like the passengers on the Titanic being worried about the long term future of ocean navigation as the water rises up to their eyeballs.
To me, “constitutional crisis” evokes an image of judicial processes making their way through the courts. Not every political disagreement has to erupt in shootings and bloodshed, but I admit I can’t speak for the core constituency of Trumpsters.
I just don’t see a constitutional crisis if the electors vote for someone else. That’s what they are there for, as a veto on the public if the public does something ill advised. And in this case, Clinton won the popular vote. There is plenty of justification to just elect a third person and declare that both major candidates failed to win sufficient public support.
One useful constitutional change that could alter the EC would be to force another election(probably in early January) where the public would choose between the nominal EC winner(Trump) and the EC’s actual choice. That would make electors more comfortable in choosing someone else, yet still give the public a chance to reaffirm their choice if they feel strongly.
Just my opinion, but the “faithless elector” laws have always seemed constitutionally dubious.
Depends on what kind of Civil War you have in mind. Random bloodshed and rioting? No. A repeat of the actual American Civil War, and this time the North would be rid of the South forever and ever? Fuck yeah.