On August 26, the California Secretary of State released a Memorandum to county election officials on ballot format for the upcoming general election. The Republican Party and the American Independent Party have both nominated Donald Trump for President. As expected, the Secretary of State’s Memorandum says the ballot should say “Donald Trump, Republican, American Independent.” This is in accordance with the election code and with the ballot used in November 1940, which included “Wendell Willkie, Republican, Townsend.”
The surprise in the Memorandum is the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if the Republican Party and the American Independent Party have not agreed to a common slate of candidates for presidential elector. The Memorandum says, “How will Presidential and Vice Presidential Electors be Selected when more than one political party nominates the same candidate?” The answer is, “The Elections Code does not address the manner in which electors for President and Vice President of the United States are selected in situations where more than one party nominates the same candidate. We will address this issue if/when appropriate.”
Several weeks ago, the American Independent Party suggested to the Republican Party that the two parties jointly nominate the same slate of presidential electors. The AIP proposed that the Republican Party choose 50 elector candidates, and the AIP choose 5 elector candidates, and then both parties would jointly nominate that fusion slate. But the Republican Party has balked at this idea. This means that the Secretary of State feels comfortable going ahead with the election, without having learned who the presidential electors of these two parties are. The Secretary of State probably made this ruling, confident that it doesn’t matter who the presidential electors are for those two parties are, because the Democrats will carry California anyway. This seems a very reckless course of action. If the two parties do file slates of presidential electors that don’t match, and if Trump carried California, there would be no method to know which presidential elector candidates had been elected. Furthermore, Democrats could claim that their slate of electors theoretically won the election because the Trump vote included two competing slates of electors and no one could know which of the three slates got the most votes.
The memorandum also gives the county election officials authority to abbreviate party names, although apparently this is just a repeat of a similar ruling made in 2012. The abbreviations would be: DEM, REP, AI, GRN, LIB, PF, and “REP, AI.” Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for the link.
Trump has an approximately ZERO chance of winning in the People’s Soviet Socialist Republic of California — so the E.C. mess is a bit moot — the CA gerrymander hacks will likely pass one more useless law later.
Although it may not matter who Trump’s electors in CA are from one standpoint, the Secretary of State and the Governor’s office will probably have a difficult time filling out and submitting their Certificate of Ascertainment after the election since it would be unclear which slate of electors received which votes.
The final point is the chilling effect that knowledge that even if Trump/Pence wins, they lose, will will have on Trump/Pence potential voters. That renders the election incredibly unfair. No POSSIBILITY of a win for Trump means either the Democrats MUST win or nobody win. The election was invalid and so is CA’s Electoral College vote & if Trump doesn’t win without CA and Hillary doesn’t either if neither have it, then the election goes to the House of Representatives to be voted on by State delegations, not individual Congressmen.
So those are thr issues to be placed before the Courts due to the covert anti-Trump motives of SOS & CAGOP. What they don’t count on is WHEN it goes to Court & how loudly the AIP’s will be howling.
The State of California’s legislature has an Article II Section 1 Constitutional duty/power to direct the manner of appointment of electors for President. By Title 3 US Code Chapter 1 US, the State’s executive has the responsibility of ascertaining the VOTES for ALL electoral slates including the ones that evidently are not going to be provided to the voters of California.
This is an injury to the voters of California, to the parties who nominated slates of electors for President and to the candidate for president. The results of such votes MUST be forwarded to the US Archivist. Shirking such a duty would prevent a legitimate certification of the vote. After all how a plurality be determined if you can’t compare the votes of Hillary’s slate to the slate submitted by the AIP, for instance, my party? The answer is of course, you can’t compare a definite number with a non-existent, undefined, indefinite or HYPOTHETICAL number.
The provisions of the Constitution and of the CA State Legislature come into play here. The CA Legislature in accord with its duty/power under the US Constitution to DIRECT the manner of “appointing” electors for President has given the power to CA voters to select a party’s Presidential elector slate, as must be noted, to the VOTER in CA Elections Code. That voter is being deprived of his/her right to make that choice.
It can (and WILL be) argued that being sure that his vote for the Trump/Pence Presidential slates will NOT be counted means that he may decide NOT to vote for that line which cannot be reported to the US Government as required by Title 3 Chapter 1. This will have a possibly decisive CHILLING effect on the Trump/Pence vote thus INVALIDATING the entire Presidential part of the November 8, 2016, CA General Election.
It is official Governor Brown will not call the legislature back into session to vote a joint resolution. Therefore
Clearing up how are the 55 persons holding the statewide office of profit of California, viz., Presidential Electors will not be selected by the CA Legislature until
after December 5, 2016, if at all.