Did I say Politburo? Sorry, I meant to say North Dakota State Senate, although it’s getting hard to tell the difference.
The bill passed by large margins which would prohibit publishing the actual number of votes cast for each candidate, until after the meeting of the Electoral College and casting of electoral votes.
All that the good folk of North Dakota will be entitled to know before the electoral vote is the percentage of votes cast for each candidate.
After all, why should the people be told exactly how they cast their votes, and exactly how many votes each candidate received in different counties and cities across the state?
Okay, so their motivation seems to be to try and stop the Interstate Compact (where member states will give their votes to the winner of the popular vote) . I was wondering what purpose this could possibly serve. I knew it probably wasn’t to keep people from crowing about how their candidate go so many votes and thus shouldn’t have lost (even though the other candidate got more).
This seems pointless. It’s not like this would change anything. The percentages combined with knowing the approximate number of voters (which we can generally determine) would be enough for the precision necessary in the Compact. It would have no more impact than just not ratifying the Compact.
All the while it looks bad politically to be hiding things. It doesn’t seem to me like they could do much as long as they have to show the percentage points, but it sounds like they said that they could, not are required, to show them. And, even if they do, it never looks good when public officials think they need to hide something.
No, it’s not permissive to reveal the vote counts. It will be prohibited. The amendment says that except when there’s a recount, public officials of the state or state subdivisions “may not release to the public the number of votes cast in the general election for the office of the president of the United States until after the times set for the meetings and votes of the presidential electors in all states.”
The practical effect is that it reduces the ability of citizens to challenge election irregularities.
If on election night, the vote totals show that Candidate A got 97% of the votes cast in the city of Bismarck, even though in the last four elections the vote split in Bismarck was never different than 55%-45%, isn’t that a bit of a red flag to suggest that something hinky happened in Bismarck? and that voters in Bismarck who voted for Candidate B might think that their votes were not counted, and might try to challenge the outcome? Under current law, that possibility is there when the vote tallies are released on election night.
But under the amendment that option won’t be there. Voters in Bismarck won’t find out that there might be something wrong until it’s too late: electoral votes have been cast, so there’s nothing you can do, Bismarck voter.
Openness and transparency are some of the key guarantees for trust in the electoral system. Hiding vote counts until it’s too late to challenge them badly undercuts that basic principle.
I don’t disagree except that I don’t think modern American conservatives have the same goals that you and I do regarding our electoral system. In fact I think that everything they’ve said about “election integrity” is a lie. I think today’s conservatives are primarily liars and that nothing they say should be trusted or relied upon.
I’ll tell you right now who wins the North Dakota presidential election every time for the rest of the 21st century- the Republican candidate. Since they’re assured of victory, why be secretive?
I hope you are correct. But it does make the Compact result seem less legitimate, especially if several red states do this. If the popular vote was close enough, as in 1960, some compact states might well disagree on who won the national poplar vote, creating a crisis. To resolve this, the compact states would have to create some sort of counting organization, which raises a possible Compact Clause issue.
GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices would be looking for grounds to strike down the compact. I think the South Dakota GOP may be on to something
As I understood it, the percentage points would still be released, down to the thosuandths, on the day. It would just be the actual totals which would not be released.
So the 95% number would be enough to notice the problem and open an investigation.
If the turnout was low, the number of voters to be added into the national total would be lower
If they publish the number of registered voters this would set a ceiling to how much of the national margin would be in play. But maybe they won’t publish that before the deadline either.
I’m a bit confused at which post you’re responding to. The purpose of my post above yours is to reply to @Northern_Piper, who appeared to be claiming that even the percentages wouldn’t be released until after the electoral college votes. I was saying I didn’t didn’t understand the article/law that way, and was asking for clarification, since he’s an actual lawyer.
If you’re responding to my previous post, then I’m not assuming that they will actually release the number of voters. I’m more arguing that they can be reasonably estimated to the degree necessary for the Compact to work. They can use the estimates of likely voters in the rest of the US compared to the actual voters and then apply some error bars.
But even if that isn’t possible, it seems to me that the only result would be that North Dakotans’ votes would count less if the Compact ever gets ratified. Why would any signatories care if one state wants to shoot itself in the foot? It would be North Dakota’s own fault that their vote totals weren’t added to the national totals.
Except that this would be the most ham-handed way of exploiting this for election fraud.
If I were inclined towards election fraud, I’d use Trump’s “Stop the Count!” rhetoric. Have a few unscrupulous Republicans in place to stop the count at a point where the Republican candidate has a 51% share of the vote, and then just report, “We won, 51-49!”, and don’t mention that you only counted 100 votes out of the 100,000 that were cast.
After the Electoral College is confirmed, it’s much harder to fix.
Is this a red state strategy or just a small state strategy? Since most small states are red, we sometimes confuse the two. The compact reduces the outsized influence small states have on the outcome of presidential elections and this is just an example of one trying to maintain that privileged status.
I agree. I just think that it plausible that this will kill the chances of the compact becoming reality.
Assuming that the governor signs the poison pill, next time the Compact comes up for a vote in a purplish state legislature, there is going to be a good argument that the model law has to be changed to account for states that hide the popular vote total. This would create serious barriers to passage, and raise the question of whether states that already passed the compact need to change their law.
Googling, I’ve read a claim that the ND law would violate federal law, but I can’t find further explanation.
