According to this article, an AP survey of major party presidential elector candidates in September reveals there are a handful of Republican presidential elector candidates who, if elected, are pondering casting their vote for someone other than Mitt Romney. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
The Alexander story is one of THE most dangerous stories ever.
How about a SANITY test for the robot party hacks chosen to be 12th Amdt Prez/VP Electors ???
How SANE are the folks in direct control of WMD ??? — esp. in places like R, C, NK, I, P or even USA ???
History reminder – 1860 minority rule election of Prez Lincoln.
One result – about 750,000 dead folks in 1861-1865.
Elephants kept the EVIL E.C. system — since it got them into POWER — more or less until 1933.
—
Save Civilization.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Great news! I sure hope some of them DON’T vote for Romney. Better yet if it causes him to lose the election,which is exactly what he deserves for all the crap they pulled at their convention to silence libertarians and constitutionalists who felt they should try working through their party and played by the rules to get there.
No, I couldn’t care less whether Obama or Romney gets to be the puppet in chief for the next four years.
More elector independence should be encouraged generally.
Rogue Electors? What is that? Mr. Alexander is just another person who simply wants to ignore the Constitution and make up his own rules. If he doesn’t like having Electors use their own judgment, which is what the Constitution intended, then abolish the Electoral College through a Constitutional Amendment and substitute a popular vote using Instant Runoff.
Here’s an idea!
If a candidate wins an absolute majority of the vote, the electors are bound. However, if no candidate wins an absolute majority, all electors are unbound.
Alexander talking about disenfranchisement is laughable. The story of the EC is among other things the story of disenfranchisement albeit with historic, elegant cover.
Anyone who gives trouble to the EC, draws added attention to its gross imperfection does patriotic work. The idea that the EC works fine and if it didn’t we’d just change it ignores the real history that it works badly, insert top 100 examples here, and that changing it is the virtuous work of generations of warriors including the mentioned rouges (recast as heroes after EC is repealed, sidelineed or substantially modified) who do more to enfranchise than most of us ever will.
I vote in state where there is a 99.9999% probibility of a certain individual of receiving a majority/supermajority of the states’ electors, before I cast my ballot. There’s your disenfranchisement Alexander. If I meet a faithless elector, I hope they’ll let me buy them lunch.
Richard:
the NYS-OAG (and the NYS Dem electoral college slate including current Gov — Cuomo –, NYS LT Gov, NYSAG, various Dem NYS senators and assembly persons, and the usual Dem public employee labor union lobbyists have all been formally placed on notice via the NYSOAG that Obama is not proven to be a constitutionally vetted natural born citizen; and that their expected NYS electoral college election will place them at risk for various severe criminal sanctions including aiding and abbetting crime against the state and federal constitutions and various state and federal statutes.
nbc = natural born citizen
nbc = natural bullshitting citizen
you decide?
Communism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order.[1] This movement, in its Marxist–Leninist interpretations, significantly influenced the history of the 20th century, which saw intense rivalry between the “socialist world” (socialist states ruled by communist parties) and the “western world” (countries with capitalist economies).
Marxist theory holds that pure communism or full communism is a specific stage of historical development that inevitably emerges from the development of the productive forces that leads to a superabundance of material wealth, allowing for distribution based on need and social relations based on freely associated individuals.[2][3] The exact definition of communism varies, and it is often mistakenly, in general political discourse, used interchangeably with socialism; however, Marxist theory contends that socialism is just a transitional stage on the road to communism. Leninism adds to Marxism the notion of a vanguard party to lead the proletarian revolution and to secure all political power after the revolution for the working class, for the development of universal class consciousness and worker participation, in a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism.
Council communists and non-Marxist libertarian communists and anarcho-communists oppose the ideas of a vanguard party and a transition stage, and advocate for the construction of full communism to begin immediately upon the abolition of capitalism. There is a very wide range of theories amongst those particular communists in regards to how to build the types of institutions that would replace the various economic engines (such as food distribution, education, and hospitals) as they exist under capitalist systems—or even whether to do so at all. Some of these communists have specific plans for the types of administrative bodies that would replace the current ones, while always qualifying that these bodies would be decentralised and worker-owned, just as they currently are within the activist movements themselves. Others have no concrete set of post-revolutionary blueprints at all, claiming instead that they simply trust that the world’s workers and poor will figure out proper modes of distribution and wide-scale production, and also coordination, entirely on their own, without the need for any structured “replacements” for capitalist state-based control.[citation needed]
In the modern lexicon of what many sociologists and political commentators refer to as the “political mainstream”, communism is often used to refer to the policies of communist states, i.e., the ones totally controlled by communist parties, regardless of the practical content of the actual economic system they may preside over. Examples of this include the policies of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam where the economic system incorporates “doi moi”, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where the economic system incorporates “socialist market economy”, and the economic system of the Soviet Union which was described as “state capitalist” by non-Leninist socialists and later by communists who increasingly opposed the post-Stalin era Soviet model as it progressed over the course of the 20th century (e.g., Maoists, Trotskyists and libertarian communists)—and even at one point by Vladimir Lenin himself.[4]
Actually, I think states OUGHT to allow unpledged electors to run, and to identify themselves as such on the ballot. Then undecided voters, or voters who simply don’t like the major candidates can effectively vote NONE OF THE ABOVE, and force the consideration of new candidates.
#7 natural: Who, exactly, do you expect to prosecute the New York electors for voting for Obama? I can’t imagine either a district attorney in New York or a U.S. attorney bringing such a case, since they wouldn’t be able to prove that (a) Obama is not a natural-born citizen, and (b) the elector knew that Obama was not a natural-born citizen.
And what if, say, Peta Lindsay of the Party for Socialism and Liberation won a state this year, despite being only 28 years old? Should the electors pledged to her be penalized for voting for the candidate they are pledged to, even knowing her age? Not in my opinion, and the 20th Amendment supports that: “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified ….”
Thus, the Constitution contemplates that someone could be President elect yet fail to qualify for office and thus be prevented from serving. (Think of, say, Victoria Woodhull, who ran for president at age 34 — the 20th Amendment, if it had existed in her time and she had won the election, would have allowed her to take office but only after her 35th birthday.) That seems inconsistent with penalizing electors for voting for an ineligible candidate, at least one they were pledged to.
If there are faithless electors who bolt to vote for Paul or Johnson the worst they can manage to do is throw the election into the house and senate, where the House will choose Romney and the Senate will choose Biden. So instead of getting a more conservative or libertarian administration, they will actually get a more liberal one. If President Obama wins an outright majority, than any faithless republican electors will have no power at all to do anything meaningful.
#10 California permits slates of unpledged electors. Only if all 55 elector candidates on the slate pledge to support a single candidate does a presidential name appear on the ballot.
Intrade has 9 electoral votes going to neither Obama or Romney.
# 9 Hmmm. What happened to the now DEAD ex-U.S.S.R. ???
S 2 in USSR = Socialist
Hmmm. 1941-1945 WW II Eastern Front – 2 killer *socialist* gangs at work killing each other off – rightwing nazis vs leftwing commies.
Later result — SOOO many USSR men got killed off that the USSR collapsed in the 1970s-1980s — i.e. not enough older men to operate the regime.
9 EV not going to Obama or Romney? Oh no, Johnson is going to win NM, AK and ME-2!! LOL
Absolute majority of the vote= electors are pledged; plurality of the vote= electors are unplugged.
#11
Albany Cty DA to be put on notice once Obama electors win 2012 NYS POTUS Electoral College Delagate general election
— aiding and abbetting (Libya-gate — the 911 killings of US military and civilians in Libya)
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery. However, anyone else directly involved in the commission of the crime, such as the lookout or the getaway car driver, is an accomplice, even though in the absence of an underlying offense keeping a lookout or driving a car would not be an offense.
An accomplice differs from an accessory in that an accomplice is present at the actual crime, and could be prosecuted even if the main criminal (the principal) is not charged or convicted. An accessory is generally not present at the actual crime, and may be subject to lesser penalties than an accomplice or principal.
An accomplice was often referred to as an abettor. This term is not in active use in the United States, having been replaced by accomplice.
At law, an accomplice has the same degree of guilt as the person he or she is assisting, is subject to prosecution for the same crime, and faces the same criminal penalties. As such, the three accomplices to the bank robbery above can also be found guilty of armed robbery even though only one stole money.
The fairness of the doctrine that the accomplice is as guilty as the primary offender has been subject to much discussion, particularly in cases of capital crimes. On several occasions, accomplices have been prosecuted for felony murder even though the actual person who committed the murder died at the crime scene or otherwise did not face capital punishment.
One of the most notorious cases of this type was the 1952 case in England involving Derek Bentley, a mentally challenged man who was in police custody when his sixteen-year-old companion, Christopher Craig, shot and killed a police constable during a botched break-in (News Report [1]). Craig was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, since as a juvenile offender he could not be sentenced to death (he was released after serving ten years), but Bentley was hanged. The incident was dramatized in the film Let Him Have It, which is what Bentley allegedly said to Craig during the incident, which can be interpreted either as telling Craig to shoot the policeman, or to give him the gun. The hanging of Bentley led to public outrage and the eventual abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom.
Aiding and abetting is a provision in United States criminal law, for situations where it cannot be shown the party personally carried out the criminal offense, but where another person may have carried out the illegal act(s) as an agent of the charged, working together with or under the direction of the charged party, who is an accessory to the crime.
It is derived from the United States Code (U.S.C.), section two of title 18:
(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
Where the term “principal” refers to any actor who is primarily responsible for a criminal offense.
#18: I don’t think that’s going to be very effective. The DA of Albany County is David Soares, a Democrat who is running unopposed for re-election. I would guess that there is greater than a 99% chance that Obama is his preferred candidate in the presidential election. Do you think that you can persuade him that Obama is ineligible and that electors ought to be prosecuted for voting for him?
Besides, New York allowed Peta Lindsay, the Socialism & Libertation candidate, onto its presidential ballot this year even though she is known to be ineligible (under age 35). That suggests to me that New York doesn’t have a harsh policy against voting for ineligible candidates.
#20
Sores will have to weigh / decide his official and political options versus official duties oath of office as a state officer (DA) and his role as an officer of the court(s) — law license.
All election lawsuits (and statutes/legislation) are a drill either supporting and defending the state and federal constitutions OR the election law suits are attempts to denigrate and make moot / dead-letter law of these documents.
#20: Before Soares can prosecute anybody for a crime, there has to be a law on the books that makes the activity a crime.
Let’s take this out of the realm of where Obama was born, and talk about another candidate who we can agree is ineligible: Peta Lindsay. She’s not 35 years old yet. Suppose Lindsay won the popular vote in New York, and her pledged electors voted for her. Under what specific law should her electors be prosecuted on the grounds of voting for an ineligible candidate? I don’t know of such a law, but perhaps you can point it out — identifying the specific title and section of U.S. or New York law you have in mind.
I wonder how many shadow Paul delegates in states Romney will win would pop up and vote for Paul.
Still, I think that you need an absolute majority in order to have the electors be pledged. If no candidate gets a majority, then all electors are unpledged.
#22
Obama EC electors will win NYS and Lindsay electors will not win.
#24: That’s not my point. I know that Lindsay is not even going to get 1% of the vote in NY. My point is that if she won, it would not be illegal for her electors to vote for her, even though she is ineligible for the presidency.
Earlier, in comment #7, you wrote (regarding electors) that voting for an ineligible candidate “will place them at risk for various severe criminal sanctions including aiding and abbetting crime against the state and federal constitutions and various state and federal statutes.” But you haven’t cited any clause of law which says that an elector shall be subjected to criminal sanctions for voting for an ineligible candidate.
Let us not forget that the Electoral College was invented as a device to extend the slaveholders’ bonus of 3/5 vote per slave held in a state from the congressional elections (where reapportionment made such a reassignment simple) to the executive branch so that slaveholders could be unduly rewarded also in the selection of the president of the United States of America. In other words, the Electoral College is a vestige of the USA’s racist past.