On December 6, two Colorado presidential electors sued the Governor and Secretary of State of Colorado, to establish that they, and all presidential electors, have a constitutional right to vote for any qualified presidential candidate when they vote as electors on December 19. Baca v Hickenlooper, 1:16cv-2986.
The two electors, Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich, received an e-mail from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office on November 18. The e-mail says, “1-4-304(5) of Colorado Revised Statutes state that presidential electors shall (must) vote for the presidential/vice-presidential ticket that receives the most votes in the state. Thus, if an elector failed to follow this requirement, our office would likely remove the elector and seat a replacement elector until all nine electoral votes were cast for the winning candidates.” The e-mail is signed by Joel Albin, Ballot Access Manager, Elections Division.
Baca and Nemanich are Democrats. They have been telling the public and the news media that they believe the Republican nominees for president and vice-president would, if sworn into office, do great harm to the United States. Baca and Nemanich say they have been communicating with other presidential electors from both major parties, hoping to form a group of electors would who vote for a candidate other than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The basis for their lawsuit is that they face an imminent threat of being replaced as electors, and that such a replacement would violate Article Two, and the Twelfth and First Amendments.
Here is the eight-page complaint.
The case is assigned to Judge Wiley Daniel, a Clinton appointee.
So, the power to derermine *how to select* presidential electors is clearly delegated to the state legislatures, but that should not be taken to mean that state legislatures have the power to require the electors to vote – for President – the way the legislatures say they should? Cute.
Yes, there’s a reason why the electoral college is a separate body, rather than having say state legislatures voting directly.
Presidential Electors were designated by the Framers of the Constitution with a fiduciary responsibility to use their independent judgment to choose a President and Vice President who would best “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution — that is the Electors sole function.
There are problems with the Electoral College but their autonomy is not a constitutional problem.
The E.C. is 1 of the 3 ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander systems in the de facto DEAD USA Const.
-i.e. each Prez has de facto been elected by about 30 percent of the HUMAN voters since 1832.
The E.C. hacks have NO responsibility since they are chosen to be robot party HACKS.
Thus one more case = one more reason to abolish the EVIL CORRUPT ROTTED E.C. (due to the EVIL CONSPIRACY of the small and slave State regimes in the 1787 top secret Federal Convention)
— regardless of ALL math MORONS in the USA since 1789.
How many regimes – national. federal, state and local manage to survive by having DIRECT elections of the chief executive officer in the regimes ???
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
D. Frank Robinson, good points.
There is a difference between giving states power to decide how to pick presidential electors, versus the power to tell an elector (after he or she is chosen) how to vote.
If the electors don’t have freedom to choose, why do we have have human beings as electors? Why not just abolish them?
It’s not clear to me that a state can nullify an elector’s vote after it has been cast.
They were chosen to carry out the will of the people of their state. If they go against the will of the people, they should be held accountable.
By saying they have a choice who to vote for, you are saying that millions of our votes won’t count for anything….
I would think a would-be “faithless” elector might be wiser not to advertise the fact — as a lawsuit of course would do. If the case goes higher up, they would run the risk of causing more problems for electors of other states as well as their own Colorado fellows.