On November 8, the state of Washington asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Chiafalo v Washington, 19-465. This is the case over whether Washington violated the U.S. Constitution when it fined three presidential electors after they voted for someone other than Hillary Clinton in December 2016.
The state’s brief says there is an “unbroken practice” since the Constitution has been in effect that electors do not vote for someone other than the person who received the most popular votes in that state. This is false. Here is the state’s brief.
What nonsense!
Sounds like the State caught it hand in the proverbial cookie jar…
Any SCOTUS purge of the WA regime LIARS ???
Will such LIARS go work for Trump and fit right in ???
The preceding paragraph quotes from ‘Ray v Blair’, and states that by the time of 12th Amendment, the standard practice had been for elector candidates to be pledged to a presidential candidate, and that the electors be chosen based on that pledge.
The pronoun “this” applies to this standard practice. It has certainly been unbroken since 1800.
If this were not true, then we would not and could not attribute popular votes to the presidential candidates even prior to the time when there were no government-printed ballots and the presidential candidate names did not appear on the ballot.
Well over 99% of electors have complied with their pledge.
ABOLISH the super-deadly timebomb EC —
1860 minority rule election – with or without faithless 12 Amdt idiots
>>> 750,000 DEAD in 1861-1866.
1876 blacks left to ROT in ex-slave States to 1965
1/2 or less votes x AREAS having bare majority [1/2] of ALL EC votes = 1/4 or less CONTROL —
perhaps 10-15 pct of ALL EC gerrymander AREAS get most TV attack ads – *marginal* States.
USELESS moron media is too evil stupid to do and report the math — on election nights.
“The state’s brief says there is an “unbroken practice” since the Constitution has been in effect that electors do not vote for someone other than the person who received the most popular votes in that state”
A totally false statement. Are they really so ignorant of history?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
wiki for almost everything
@WZ,
Richard Winger’s has mischaracterized the State’s brief.
“this” unbroken practice refers to what had become the standard practice by the time the 12th Amendment was adopted in 1804. that the elector candidates would be pledged to presidential candidates.
Did the plaintiffs pledge that if elected they would vote for Hillary Clinton?
Did the State of Washington represent to the voters that if Clinton received the most popular votes, that the electors associated with her who had pledged to vote for her would be elected?
From 1804 through 2012 how many electors have been appointed? How many had been pledged to a candidate? How many violated that pledge? What percentage of the total is that? On what basis can it be claimed that the practice of pledging been broken?
@DR,
1808 6
1820 1
1832 2
1892 1
1956 1
1960 14 (but were the 6 Alabama electors pledged to Byrd, or truly unpledged?)
1968 1
1972 1
1976 1
1988 1
2000 1
Total 30 out of 20,000+ electors between 1804 and 2012.
99.9% have been faithful to their pledge.
Only takes ONE to cause Civil WAR II in 2020 —
perhaps in ME CD 2 ???
Jim, you left out the instances of electors not voting “correctly” for vice-president. There have been many more instances of vice-presidential “wrong” votes. There were so many in 1836 that no one got a majority of the electoral college for vice-president, and the US Senate had to pick the vice-president.
You also left out the 2004 instance when a Kerry elector voted for Edwards for president. And you didn’t mention 1872. And you left out 1948, when two Tennessee Democratic electors said if elected they would vote for Thurmond. They were elected. One of them did what he had said he would and voted for Thurmond. The other voted for Truman despite having said he would vote for Thurmond. Which one was the true “faithless” elector? Also you left out the 1796 instance.
technically, the State doesnt have to have presidential elections. So bush v. gore said.
i am not sure – under current case law – that State cant fine citizens or avoid having an election all together.
@RW,
1796 was prior to adoption of the 12th Amendment. Arguably, one of the intended goals of the 12th Amendment was to curb the shenanigans of 1796. The alleged reason for the electors not voting for Pinckney was to foil an effort by Alexander Hamilton to make Pinckney president. The consequence was the election of Thomas Jefferson.
1836 were the Virginia electors pledged to vote for Johnson? All I can find definitively were that the Virginia delegates to the Democratic convention supported William Rives. A delegate from Virginia read a resolution to the effect that the Virginia delegation could not support Johnson. Recall also that in 1840, the Democrats renominated Martin Van Buren, but declined to renominate Johnson, and in fact nominaated no one.
1872 you know why I didn’t include this election. In any event most of the electors voted for Brown as either VP or president.
1948 The Tennessee elector was cross-nominated as a Democrat and a States Rights elector. He was elected as a Democrat, but voted for the States Right candidate.
2004 was apparently an accident. The electors did not pursue the issue (they probably could have recognized their own handwriting) probably to avoid embarassing the elector. As a result of this election, Minnesota became the first state to adopt the model faithful elector act (which was used for the first time in 2016).
In any case, the brief refers to “this … unbroken practice”. “this” is a pronoun, so we look for its antecedent. We find it in the previous paragraph where the standard practice was said to be for elector candidates have been pledged.
That some electors have violated their pledge is of no import. “unbroken” refers to a contnuing practice. This is certainly true.
The linkage between elector candidates and presidential candidates via pledges is that it is customary to count votes for elector candidates as being for presidential candidates, even if the name of the presidential candidate does not appear on the ballot. They are even linked when the electors are not pledged (e.g. 1960 Alabama).
The remedy for faithless electors is to let the presidential candidate name their electors. The state political party could choose to endorse or not endorse the presidental candidate.
For example, in Washington, Hillary Clinton would have designated Tim Kaine as her VP candidate, and the name of the 12 elector candidates. Each would include their consent. Clinton would also include an endorsement from the Washington Democratic Party.
How many New Age 12 Amdt Prez electors are NOT chosen by a Prez candidate or top party HACKS [esp top staff hacks of the Prez candidate]
— sometimes with top State party hacks input — esp top $$$ donors to the Prez candidate or State party or national party.
How many New Age 12 Amdt Prez electors want to be TOP SECRET —
due to all sorts of New Age DEATH threats B-U-T BIIIIG possible $$$$$$$ bribes — domestic or foreign.
See all sorts of bribes in various Europe regimes by monarchs/oligarchs attacking other monarch/oligarch regimes for thousands of years.
USA = one more EVIL and vicious monarch/oligarch regime posing as a *democratic* [small d] regime ??? Duh.
Esp. since R-O-T of olde Brit/French empires in 1939-1942 in WW II.
USA FORCE keeps the Brit/French regimes barely going after 1942.
Jim, we don’t know if the 2004 incident was an accident or not. The elector has never spoken.
You didn’t mention all the vice-presidential examples…1808, 1812, 1816, 1820, 1824, 1828, 1832, 1840.
some of the electors in 1872 were disobedient because the Dem national committee had recommended a particular ticket and many Democratic electors ignored the recommendation.
RW –
quite amazing that M-A-N-Y Civil WARS have not [yet] happened due to the super-timebomb EC !!! ???
ESP N-O-W WITH PERSONALITY CULT PREZ/VP CANDIDATES.
SEE END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC DUE TO PERSONALITY CULTS IN 120 BC-27 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic
Had the electoral candidates pledged to support Greeley, the Liberal Republican nominee, or whomever the Democrat Party told them to vote for?
Maybe the elector in Minnesota really wanted John Ewards (sic).
But I think you are failing to address my point (and that of the State of Washington). You may have been expecting the statement to be about faithless electors. But it was about pledged electors.
Without the fact that there has been an UNBROKEN PROCESS of pledged electors since at least the time of the 12th Amendment, we would not have the concept of faithless electors, those who violated their pledge.
The 12th Amendment is predicated on the fact that there would be pledged electors, who would vote for the same two candidates producing a tie (e.g. Jefferson and Burr). Hamilton had realized his mistake by that time. He had advocated for popular election of electors, from single-member electoral districts. Anyone who believes that popularly-elected electors would not be partisan, rather than wise sages is either disingenuos or extremely naive.