Just happened here in Denver and it could jet really messy on the 19th. I’m really curious if the petitioners got a fair verdict because the judge said “Part of me thinks this is really a political stunt,”. What was actually denied was an injunction since the ruling on the lawsuit will not occur until after Dec 19th. The Colorado Secretary of State has said he will replace electors that do not vote for Clinton. My question is if they are replaced after they vote [for the wrong person] are there now two slates depending on how the lawsuits go? Could replacing an elector after they vote mean the vote was not “regularly given”?
Yeah…no. The states can punish electors who vote against their mandate, but the states cannot compel the electors to vote in a specified way, nor replace them after the vote is taken. (How? The vote would already have been taken! Do they imagine they can demand a do-over? If that were possible, I want another chance at the election on Nov. 8!)
I don’t understand it either. “You must vote for X!” Elector casts a vote for Y. Do they look at the votes and say, “You’re out! Bring in a substitute elector!”?
Maybe the electors voting could be supervised by Kim Jong Un.
What kind of “judge” doesn’t realize how grossly inappropriate this is? A judge at a wet T-shirt contest?
Electors electing is inappropriate?
Trump is generally believed to have mob ties. He has swindled his investors. He’s bad news. I don’t blame someone for not voting for him.
And, on a less serious scale, Hillary is not exactly a great friend to the Democrats who nominated her. Did you see her running away from the party, and trying to get Republicans to split the ticket and let her “share power” with McConnell and Ryan? Madame No-Coattails* is incapable of leading a national party.*
One is crook and terrible for the country, while the other makes her co-partisans’ jobs much harder and might lead to future victories of crooks.
If I were an elector this year, I’d be flirting with voting for Pat Paulsen’s corpse.
This is exactly what the Secretary of State for Colorado has said he will do. Colorado law may justify this action (I’ve not studied the relevant statutes). After all, as far as the feds are concerned, it’s Colorado’s party, and they can run it however they want to.
As for the determination by the judge:
-
It was a ruling on a request for a preliminary injunction (or possibly a T.R.O., though I didn’t look to see which was involved). To win such a request, a party basically has to show that a) they will likely win at trial on the underlying cause of action, b) if the injunction isn’t granted, the plaintiff/petitioner will suffer harm that cannot be remedied, c) the balance of harms from the question of enjoining or not enjoining favors the petitioner (it would be better to enjoin than to not enjoin), and d) acting on the request serves the general public interest. Since this is the case, the judge’s point that it appeared to be a political stunt was quite appropriate; it goes to the issue of whether or not the public interest is being served, if nothing else. And, of course, he was right; the whole point to the lawsuit was not that these electors didn’t really want to vote for Hillary Clinton so much as to give OTHER electors the opportunity to not vote for Donald Trump, thus throwing the election into the House (or, perhaps, causing 270 of them to come to some agreement before Dec. 19 on an acceptable third option, which is one of the more stupid ideas I’ve seen floated about since the election).
-
It has little or no precedential value, since it doesn’t even dispose of the underlying cause of action; for all we know, the case to invalidate the law might eventually succeed. Doubtful, obviously, but the current decision doesn’t foreclose it.
-
Hi, Opal!
I’m not sure if I saw that. I’d have to have some idea of what you’re talking about to know.
I don’t understand. When you run for president, you’re running to help your party win Congress. Why say she wants to share power with McConnell? Wouldn’t it be better from her perspective to have Schumer as majority leader? Ditto Ryan v Pelosi. How would being a good Democrat mean “I want to work with the Republican leadership?”
IF I wanted to live in a fantasy world, I’d pick a better one than you did.
Here is the Colorado Law regarding electors
Observations:
The SoS cannot replace the Elector. It looks like at best he can have the Elector removed then the other Electors appoint a new one. BUT that being said I do not see anything authorizing the SoS to remove an Elector - especially after the vote.
Despite the argument in court that the Electors must follow state law, Section 1 only specifies that they must follow Federal Law with no statement about following state law.
I don’t think the law as written can force an elector to vote as pledged or face removal. All they could do was prosecute an Elector for not following section 5.
AFAIK, once the vote’s cast, it’s cast irrevocably. So if an elector is faithless, then the State might possibly have some sort of mechanism for penalizing that faithless vote, but they don’t have the ability to take the vote back and replace it with one by a second elector of their choosing
It wouldn’t!
But that’s what she did. Even in the primaries, she was running so hard to the right she passed the center and was selling her Republican-ness.
She was talking about how she’d work with Republicans and they’d work with her, rather than saying she was going to retake Congress. In the summer, she was trying to get actual super-villain Henry Kissinger’s endorsement. Maybe you missed all this, but I remember.
“Democrats” like her, aren’t.
<sigh>
-
The statute clearly says that an elector “shall” cast a certain vote. The elector is not allowed a choice.
-
The statute says that, in the case an elector vacancy occurs because of “refusal to act”, that vacancy can be filled.
-
The argument would be that any elector who fails to follow §5 has “refused to act”, and at that point, the spot is vacant by that refusal, and can be replaced. Presumably the Secretary of State would be the person who determines if this has happened. The electors would then replace the faithless elector and that new person would cast the required ballot.
-
Any dispute about the validity of a given state’s votes is determined by the United States Congress. Care to speculate on what the Congress would decide in the case of a faithless elector who was trying to disrupt the election of the Republican President-elect?
After the vote has been taken? How?
I disagree that “refusal to act” is equivalent to “voting in a way that contradicts section 5”. It is clear from the example given that a vacancy occurs when an elector can not or does not vote.
The fact that you don’t agree with it doesn’t make it an invalid legal argument. Supreme Court decisions are rarely 9-0; the dissent accepts legal arguments that the majority rejects, which means that they were valid legal arguments, just not the ones that won the day.
My point was to show that, whether or not you agree with it, a valid legal argument can be made for the concept.
Trinopus, the invalid vote never actually occurred, don’t you get the legal thought involved? If you don’t follow §5, then you didn’t cast a valid vote. Thus, your vote doesn’t count, and you get removed, and replaced. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp.
I agree. “Refusal to act” is in a sentence which also includes death and absence as reasons for the appointment of a new elector in the dead or absent elector’s place. The implication is that electors need to be present and able/willing to cast a ballot, or else they get replaced. Refusal to act in this case likely means that they can’t abstain.
Casting one’s electoral ballot is clearly acting, even if it’s in violation of section 5,
I can’t imagine that there would be any ability to replace a faithless elector if only because effectively rescinding and replacing an elector’s vote because it’s not what the powers-that-be desire is a horrendous idea and terrible precedent to set.
Remember that the powers that be in this context are the state’s voters.
Even if the Secretary of State does not have the authority to replace a faithless elector, there is also the possibility that the legislature would convene to, in essence, pass a new law invalidating the putative vote and naming a new slate of electors to follow the direction of the voters. This would no doubt get challenged in court, but there are strong arguments on the legislature’s side in this scenario.
Maybe this is the year that we get the question answered once and for all if “faithless elector” laws are Constitutional.
Why is it a “terrible precedent to set”?
Colorado has made a very strong public policy determination that the will of the electorate is paramount when it comes to awarding its electoral votes. I would think this would be exactly what the crowd who are complaining that Ms. Clinton should be President because she won the popular vote would want: the people of Colorado have spoken, now their democratically expressed will must be carried out.
Taking the stance that the Legislature intended with §1 to include in “refusal to act” a refusal to follow §5 gives §5 actual teeth. Otherwise, there’s no enforcement mechanism for §5. What is the state supposed to do, slap the faithless elector on the wrist and say, “Go to the time out corner, no milk and cookies for you!”? The question simply put is, can §1 be read to mean “refusal to act [lawfully]”? That’s not a hard argument to make at all.
Please note that none of my commentary is intended to say how I, personally, would interpret the law in question. I’m simply pointing out that, as with most things legal, it’s far from an open and shut determination.