Due to a combination of eccentric behavior on the part of the California Secretary of State, and the California Republican Party, if Donald Trump carries California in the popular vote on November 8, he still won’t get California’s electoral votes. See the post immediately underneath for an explanation. Due to the ballot format, California voters who wish to vote for Donald Trump will be forced to cast an overvote. The ballot design forces Trump voters to vote for 108 different individuals for presidential elector, yet California is only entitled to 55 electoral votes. Therefore, the votes for Trump will be overvotes and all will be invalid.
The California Republican Party was free to have nominated the same presidential elector candidates as the American Independent Party. The AIP turned in its list first, so the Republican Party was aware of the AIP names. But the Republican Party, which filed its slate at the last hour before the deadline for electors, chose to ignore the AIP list and submit different candidates. The AIP had been suggesting a joint list to the Republican Party ever since August, and had even offered to let the Republicans choose 50 members, but the Republicans ignored the AIP request.
The AIP has endorsed Trump. The sound you hear is Governor George Wallace spinning in his grave.
How many ARMIES of robot party hack lawyers filing nonstop complaints N-O-W ???
Agree Michael.
This is a spit in the face to voters.
If this really happens, the voting is rigged & corrupt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another Killary rigging!!!!
Well, one question is who acted first? The SOS is a Democrat, and I suppose might not be above happening to overlook such a confusion if it costs his state the chance to go Republican with the biggest class of the Electoral College.
The Democrat Secretary of State set it up that way to achieve exactly this end. He should be impeached.
I wounder what would happen if 53 of them formally withdrew.
“If Donald Trump carries California” is like begining a sentence with “If Hillary Clinton carries Oklahoma, …”
Sec. Padilla just did his job, he shouldn’t be impeached. This was an existing law before he even took office. Plus, 538 shows that Trump has a less than 1% chance of winning California.
Does this mean that Trump’s popular vote would be 0?
So we blame the Democratic SOS instead of the retarded party leadership of the California GOP? This issue rests squarely on the shoulders of the GOP CA Chairman. They knew damn well this would be an issue and ignored it. Stop always blaming “the other side”… The GOP fucked up…. it’s they’re fault. The AIP repeatedly extended an olive branch and NOTHING from the GOP.
So hold on, if I want to sabotage Hillary, I can nominate her on a different Party line with a different slate of electors and there’s nothing she can do about it? Too late now, but I can see this being abused in 2020.
While the Secretary of State may have taken advantage of the situation, this is really an issue of incompetence on the part of the Republican leadership in California. The real victim is the AIP. They did everything properly, but they get the shaft if Trump carries the state (as unlikely as that might be).
Doesn’t the Libertarian Party have the same problem in New York?
There is a New York problem for Gary Johnson, but it is somewhat different. In New York voters can choose the Libertarian electors or the Independence Party electors. That splits up Johnson’s vote, almost as though he were running against himself. That is unfortunate.
But at least New York will be able to tell the federal government how many votes each candidate for presidential elector received. California will not be able to do its legal duty to the federal government to provide that data.
1860 Electoral College machinations = 1861 Civil W-A-R — about 750,000 DEAD on both sides.
2016 Electoral College machinations = 2017 Civil W-A-R II ??? Stay tuned.
The EVIL top STATIST control freak devil monsters in Devil City do NOT like each other.
See the Spanish Civil WAR in 1936-1939 — left killers versus right killers.
The solution is a move to district election of presidential electors, place their names on the ballots (instead of the party nominees), and have them all out actually campaigning locally for the position as real candidates. The nominees can meet them on the campaign trail and endorse their local presidential electors. The ballots would be no more crowded than they are now and independent and minor party electors will have an easier time getting on the ballot since they’d be doing so for smaller areas.
Padilla should have either provided two lines on the ballot, one for each slate, or instructed the AIP and the CA GOP that they needed to submit a combined slate. What he should not have done under any circumstances is accept both slates.
Will the Secretary of State’s website show returns for Donald Trump on election night? If not, this is going to be a huge story.
This is the AIP’s fault for not nominating a different presidential candidate like Castle or even Hoefling as they have done since their founding; it’s in fact the purpose they were founded for. Considering the behavior of the AIP leadership online, I can imagine the Republican leadership had difficulty communicating with them.
I think Don Grundmann has been proven right that the AIP is a tool of the Democratic Party to destroy the conservative movement.
Don Grundmann has not had a party post since September 2. 2008. Donald Trump will make a very good prexy. It looks like anti-Trump folks are out to to use the CA GOP with the tactic and take away it Congressional delegation for the next four years under Article XIV, Section 2.
The AIP deserves no blame. They nominated a candidate they liked. They sought to cooperate with the California GOP to create a unified slate and were rebuffed. And they most certainly did nothing to cause Alex Padilla to make the poor decisions that he made.
http://ivn.us/2016/09/07/will-californians-get-to-vote-for-trumps-electoral-college-slates/
Hillary will win California .Many Republican Leanimg voters will probably stay home .This is Gary Johnsons year with or without Mr sell out William weld .William weld is another Wayne allyn root .
Except for the fact that William Weld is widely respected on both sides of the aisle.
The SOS discussed the issue in CCROV #16270
http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov//ccrov/pdf/2016/august/16270sr.pdf
Bizarrely, the memo notes EC 13210(b) and simply says “that’s the law, you have to follow it”. However the memo overlooks EC 13205(b). There is no indication that this is optional text.
I can not find anything in the Elections Code that explicitly says a vote for the presidential candidates is a vote for the elector candidates. The only indication that this is true is the instructions in EC 13205(b) – and that text makes clear to voters that they are voting for electors of the party, not the presidential candidate. Further, it is political parties who nominate the elector candidates.
Counties should be required to reprint ballots that omit the language of 13205(b), and 13105(c) should be ignored since it contradicts instructions to the voters.
Since there is no way for voters to vote for a single party, then a mark next to Donald J. Trump must be construed as a vote for the elector candidates of both parties (this would be like the 2008 presidential primary in Los Angeles where it could not be determined whether certain ink blots were associated with Democratic or American Independent candidates, and were counted as both, or the election in Arizona where it could not be determined that some ballots were not for a Socialist Worker candidate.
So all 108 elector candidates would receive the same number of votes. California has procedures for handling tie votes (EC 15651(a)).
California is rigged for democrats from top to bottom. Plain and simple. Anything that would benefit a right siding party was bound to have some kind of roadblock.
AIP is just a tad bit smarter than the other parties leaders.
I note Article II, Section 2.5 of the California State Constitution which states: “A voter who casts a vote in
an election in accordance with laws of the State shall have that vote counted”.
As of now 3,021,095 persons in California voted for Trump/Pence. How does voting for any of these candidates for POTUS and VPOTUS get a slate of
55 Presidential Electors? The same question needs
to be asked of the voters that voted for Clinton?