On April 4, the Oklahoma House passed SB 309, so it is now on its way to the Governor. This is the bill to provide that if a presidential elector casts a vote in the Electoral College different from what was expected, he or she is deemed to have resigned. The vote in the House was 62-24. A majority of the Democrats who voted on this bill voted against it. This is the first time a bill on this subject has failed to get majority support in any legislative chamber from either of the two major parties. Generally these bills pass almost unanimously.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Abolish the timebomb Electoral College.
See the 1860 election when the timebomb went off — about 750,000 DEAD on both sides in 1861-1865.
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Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
Nonpartisan App.V. for all elected executive officers and all judges.
Having the possibility of disobedient electors is one of the important strengths of the Electoral College system that makes it far better than direct election of the POTUS and VP.
This bill is another example of power mad politicians trying to give an edge to themeselves in ruling over and controlling the system. Controlling electors, “top-two” and NPV are all attempts to ensure that America is controlled by a single group of powerful individuals and to end Liberty in America.
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Oh…I agree! But even better would be to have electors pull “R” or “D” balls out of a state lottery randomizing machine, don’t you think?
Or…how about this?…let’s appoint an EC “king” and have the “king” select the electors for us.
That would protect us from…who is it we’re protecting ourselves from again?…oh yes…US.
#2 How States and local regimes manage to survive by having ALL Voters elect State Guvs, local mayors, etc. ???
Is a Prez the Prez of ALL of the *United* States or just the robot party hack States/DC which help elect such Prez ???
Again, elections should be held on a non-partisan basis.
But these bills are truly goofy. Once an elector has voted, regardless of whether the vote is cast as pledged, s/he has resigned, as his/her “term of office” ends with the casting of the ballot.
If a State attempts to substitute an elector, and an electoral vote, the court donnybrook might well make 2000 look pleasant in comparison.
Jeff Daiell
@5 There is no such thing as a “non-partisan” election.
You can have a system that allows, recognizes and deregulates parties, so that we have free elections;
or
you can have a system that pretends to be “non-partisan” or regulates parties so that much of their activity is hidden from public view, and therefore, less transparent and more conspiratorial;
or
you can have a closed system such as the Communist Party in the old USSR or the US version of the communist system called “top-two” that ends free elections altogether.
How many current States/DC have faithless E.C. Elector laws ???
— i.e. remove a showboating idiot who votes against the WILL of the Electors in such States/DC — and even perhaps put such idiots into jail for about 200 years due to their attempts to subvert Democracy.
#5 The theory in the “model” legislation that is being used is that when a presidential elector marks his ballot in a way contrary to expectations is that he has refused to “vote”, and resigns his position.
Maybe we should just use faithless ballot counting machines.
A “non-partisan” election is one in which candidates appear on the ballot as individuals, with no party affiliation listed.
Do most voters know, nonetheless, to which party a given candidate belongs? Yes. Does not printing party affiliation on the ballot reduce knee-jerk partisanship among voters? Also yes.
Jeff Daiell
“Non-partisan” elections have been used historically to ensure that the two major parites actually control everything and to kill off 3rd parties and independents.
States such as WI and VA changed many partisan elections to “non-partisan” in order to kill off the socialist and progressive parties. It worked.
Voters are much easier to fool and manipulate when electoral systems hide information as they do in so-called “non-partisan” elections. They should really be called ultrapartisan, statist elections. They are a precursor to one-party, state control.
Nonpartisan stuff is for executive/judicial offices.
Partisan stuff for a zillion years regarding legislative bodies
— what the laws should be — especially in the New Age since 1929
— with a larger and larger fractions of ALL persons getting ALL of their NET income from governments
— i.e. govt officers, employees, contractors, interest getters and especially WELFARE folks.
Result the now about 21 TRILLION in USA/STATE/LOCAl fixed debts with trillions more coming in UN-funded liabilities — UNTIL the WHOLE evil rotted system collapses in hyper-inflation and worse.