General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe ELECTORS must DO THEIR JOBS -- or we must ABOLISH the Electoral College - PERIOD.
ALL THREE INSTANCES APPLY TO TRUMP:https://twitter.com/dm_cgo/status/808367410541686784
onecaliberal
(32,489 posts)boston bean
(36,186 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,280 posts)It has to be done by Constitutional amendment, which is about as likely to happen as a performance of the Ice Capades in Hell.
potone
(1,701 posts)and I went to the official web page of the Electoral College, is exactly what instructions that the Electors are given, and what oath, if any, they take before casting their votes. I would feel a lot better (well, OK, a little better) if I knew that they were informed about the purpose of the Electoral College and that they are not just there to rubber-stamp the results from their states.
Can anyone enlighten me about this? Thanks in advance!
CousinIT
(9,151 posts)Another reason they need to GO.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=172551
forthemiddle
(1,373 posts)How are they "brain-dead, snot-nosed partisans"?
They both put out factual information on the electoral college, and politely declined to change their votes.
Would you change your vote if you were a Clinton elector?
Face it, they are selected by the State party because they are loyal Republicans, just as on our side. You have to be a party loyalist for that reason.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Some require the electors to vote as a bloc, a few don't. Some have penalties for not voting "as proscribed".
There is nothing in the Constitution describing how the Electors are to do their job, just that they are to do it.
onenote
(42,383 posts)The election of the President is a state-centric process. When you vote for a presidential candidate you are actually voting for a specific slate of electors selected by the party of that candidate.
There is not constitutionally mandated oath or any other specific standard that an elector is required to follow. (The Federalist Papers are an aid to interpreting the Constitution but they are not a substitute for the Constitution itself).
In Maryland, electors are required to take the same oath to support the US Constitution and the State of Maryland that any other public official is required to take. In Virginia, the only oath that an elector is required to take is a pledge, signed before the election takes place, that the elector will cast his/her vote for the candidate of his/her party if that candidate wins the popular vote in the state. That pledge is enforceable to a limited extent -- a person who won't sign the pledge can be excluded from consideration as an elector before the election takes place. Whether the pledge could be enforced after the election is a much more dubious question.
In the end there probably is nothing that anyone can do to force an elector to vote a particular way, or not vote a particular way.
potone
(1,701 posts)That explains why I could not find an oath on the web site, although I did read a reply from an elector to a letter from someone asking the elector not to vote for Trump. That elector's reply stated that there was an oath that the electors had to take..I misinterpreted that to mean that all electors had to take the same oath. I guess I should not be surprised that since elections are conducted by states, that there is no federal oath that electors must take. But what a mess!
roamer65
(36,739 posts)Just maybe we will see why the founding fathers created it.
kentuck
(110,950 posts)What more could you expect a Republican to do?
Hekate
(90,202 posts)yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)12 have at least 1 statehouse and governor. 3 have no statehouses but has the governor. Repugs have 31 governors with 19 state houses and the rest a variety of at least one statehouse. The only way to get a constitutional amendment would be to flip a ton of races in the next couple of elections or convince a ton of repugs this is good for the country.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)First the amendment would have to pass both houses of Congress by a two-thirds margin. After that, it would have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
In other words, a whole bunch of the states that benefit most from the Electoral College would have to agree to abolish it. Not likely any time soon.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)There have been a ton of posts demanding this and and averring that, nearly all of them betraying a complete ignorance of how we might actually achieve the goal of getting rid of this broken relic of another time. It's not going to be easy -- in fact it will be well-nigh impossible.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts).......require constitutional amendments and others "demanding" that the USSC step in and throw out the election results and require a "do-over", I'm seriously shocked at how many voting adults have no earthly idea what our Constitution does and doesn't say/allow or how our government works.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)In other words, do things like Donald Trump would try to do.