On December 19, the very day the electoral college voted, the Colorado Secretary of State set forth new regulations on how the meeting of the presidential electors in his state is to operate. The new regulations include the wording of an oath that each elector must take, or he or she won’t be recognized.
The new regulations were issued after a state court ruled that the Secretary of State could not enforce the new oath without a new regulation. See this story for more details about what happened on December 19 in Denver.
Something tells me Secretary of State is going to be a more hotly contested election than usual over the next few years.
I’m no lawyer, but it would seem that such an oath would run into the same court decisions that have blocked state term limits for members of Congress. The states aren’t supposed to add additional qualifications to federal constitutional offices.
I just had a thought about what Chris Cole said about term limits not being allowed by the states. States do have control over how ballots are printed and who appears on them (one way they keep 3rd parties under their boot). Could the states say a persons name cannot appear after being in office a set number of terms? That way the person can still run as a write-in but it would almost assure they don’t win.
What will be the last E.C. machination in the 2013-2017 Prez term ???
How many more machinations coming in 2017-2021 — in the USA banana republic of LAWLESS HACKS.
Brandon, that issue was decided by the Supreme Court in its term limits decision in 1996 — Thornton v. U.S. Term Limits, Inc.
The Court handled both the question of term limits for members of Congress and ballot qualification for an incumbent member of Congress at the same time. It’s unconstitutional both ways.
@Brandon L and @Mark Dunlap,
Arkansas law said “term-limited” incumbents could not be on the ballot, but could run as write-in candidates. That was overturned by the SCOTUS.
However States can permit candidates to provide political information. In Colorado, US Senate Candidates were permitted to say if they pledged to only serve two terms and this appeared on ballots.
It appears that the regulations were adopted on the 13th.
Certain electors had sought to enjoin enforcement of certain Colorado statutes. The regulations were a proper response to ensure that Colorado statutes and the will of the Colorado voters was followed.
These regulations say that if an elector “refuses to act” their seat is vacated and will be filled in by the other electors.
If an elector refuses to fill in a vacancy, that is a refusal to act, and their seat too is vacated to be filled in by the other electors.
However if all the electors refuse to act, the state can’t do anything, because the SOS can’t replace them on his own. The state always needs the electors to finish the paperwork because only they can fill vacancies of other electors.
The state is trying to pretend it has the power to create the vacancy, when it doesn’t have the power to fill it.