Electors vote today....will Trump be "unpresidented"?

[JamesHackerMP]

As most of you are no doubt aware, the United States does not directly elect its president; 538 presidential electors do.

The electors are normally bound by their pledges, but not all states levy penalties for, or debar the electors from, voting outside one's pledge.  One TX elector had already announced he's not voting for Trump but a "moderate republican".  A Democratic elector from Washington (state of, not the federal capital) announced she too would vote for a moderate Republican instead of Hillary Clinton.  (The House of Representatives elects the president from the top 3 returns in the electoral college, should the latter deadlock--not have 270 votes for one of the candidates--so she's actually wise to do that when you think about it, since the House is in Republican hands and they'd never pick Hillary, but might pick a different Republican...who knows?)

We shall see.  By the end of the day, Trump's now-realized presidential ambitions could be unrealized.  It would require 36 Trump electors (from those states where they could do it and get away with it) to defect and vote for someone else.  It's a pretty slim chance that would happen.  But even if a handful of them decided to defect, it would be not only unprecedented, but it would draw a lot of attention to the fact that Americans are pretty uneasy about the Russian influence in our election.  (It might even be remembered long enough to start impeachment charges, should the scandal get a little deeper....but that too is probably a long shot.)

Then again, stranger things have happened in American politics before.

[Boges]

No, 0% chance of it happening. It's a formality. There's a better chance of the GG vetoing a law sent to them by the HoC and Senate. 

[DogOnPorch]

The Trump Army gathers at Manassas...bayonets glinting in the cold sunshine...

[JamesHackerMP]

Granted, in 2000, no electors defected, nor in 1888; when the loser of the popular vote won the most electors.  Judging by that, you'd be correct to assume it's 0%.

This time COULD be a little different.  We now have evidence of Russian influence in the election, combined with the fact that the popular vote for Clinton was 2.1%---or 2,864,974 votes---ahead of Donald Trump.  (In 2000, the lead was 0.7% ahead, or 543,895 votes.)

If I were a bookie, I'd give it a 5% chance (whatever that is in mathematical "odds").

Edited December 19, 2016 by JamesHackerMP

[Boges]

If the election is overturned you'd see a legit civil war break out in the states. 

[JamesHackerMP]

Also, there have been "faithless electors" here and there, but it's usually just one idiot.

Looking on Wikipedia, there's a few exceptions to the "usually just one idiot" statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

[JamesHackerMP]

No you wouldn't see a civil war.  Whatever Canadians would like to believe to the contrary, your neighbor to the south has a stable political system.  Call it dysfunctional, call it arcane, call it whatever you'd like to call it; you cannot call it unstable.  (like "civil war" unstable.)

But there would be a political shitstorm.

Edited December 19, 2016 by JamesHackerMP

[?Impact]

It would be interesting to have some of the electors vote contrary to how they are expected to, and hopefully they do to send a message. It is however a pipe dream to think that the 35 or so needed to sway the election would. We are not going to know, at least for sure, until the new year so don't expect any news today.

[Argus]

27 minutes ago, Boges said:

If the election is overturned you'd see a legit civil war break out in the states. 

The SNL 'news broadcast' the other night was amusing as usual. When it talked about the electors possibly not voting for Trump the guy said "The only thing that scares me more than Trump getting elected is Trump NOT getting elected. Because taking the presidency away from him now would be like giving a chimp a loaded automatic weapon and then trying to take it away from him.

[JamesHackerMP]

I hope you're not comparing Americans to chimps, lol.

The results will get out pretty quickly, possibly even today.  C-SPAN usually covers it, for some reason (this time there is obviously more reason to do so.)

[Guest]

Personally, I think the EC has a duty to prevent a person from becoming the POTUS if they believe foreign influence in the election.  The question would be, how sure are they of the foreign influence?

Edited December 19, 2016 by bcsapper

[Rue]

For a delegate to ignore their mandate which is to rubber stamp the popular vote is unconstitutional. The people who say its possible are right in theory but not in practice.

A delegate ignoring the popular vote mandate would be challenged in court as engaging in an unconstitutional act. The delegate system was not intended to ignore popular vote just manage it, not second guess it, just make it reportable in a controlled manner avoiding the kind of mess say in Italy with proportional voting.

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Rue

[Moonlight Graham]

If the college didn't vote Trump in, it would cause a constitutional crisis and there would be riots, and rightfully so.

[Argus]

10 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

If the college didn't vote Trump in, it would cause a constitutional crisis and there would be riots, and rightfully so.

 

Looks to me like they would simply be fulfilling their mandate.

/Although the Founding Fathers wanted the people to have a say, there was concern that a charismatic tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come into power. Alexander Hamilton briefly addressed these concerns in the Federalist Papers. The idea was that the electors would be a group of people who would ensure that a qualified person would become president.

https://www.reference.com/government-politics/purpose-electoral-college-c9f12a8548d434ee#

Edited December 19, 2016 by Argus

[JamesHackerMP]

It would be a constitutional crisis and it might result in the abolition of the EC.  For some people this would obviously be a blessing in disguise.

Considering the possibility that the election has been infected by Russian influence, which is the worse constitutional crisis?

[Argus]

2 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:

It would be a constitutional crisis and it might result in the abolition of the EC.  For some people this would obviously be a blessing in disguise.

Considering the possibility that the election has been infected by Russian influence, which is the worse constitutional crisis?

I would rather they simply put Trump in place and rely on the congress to keep him in line, but it doesn't look to me like the electors choosing otherwise would be unconstitutional.

The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy. James Madison worried about what he called “factions,” which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madison’s fear – which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed “the tyranny of the majority” – was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could“sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.”  

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/

[JamesHackerMP]

One of the purposes of the EC was that they didn't want Congress electing the President.  In the "rough draft" of the constitution of 1787 ("Report of the Committee of Detail" of August 7, 1787, a month or so before they adjourned and signed it), the President was elected by Congress.  This gave rise to certain problems.  The president needs a degree of independence from the legislature in a presidential system in order to do his job.  If Congress elected him, congressmen would have to "prostitute their votes" as Hamilton says in No. 68, to presidential candidates.  To keep him independent enough, therefore, he couldn't be re-elected.  The delegates at the convention wanted a re-electable president with a shorter term so that, even though he should serve for a while, he would therefore have regular re-assessments of his capability and performance (e.g., elections).  The rough draft gave him a seven year term, not re-eligible.  So like any good assembly, they consigned the problem to committee and moved onto other things, until the Committee of Unfinished Parts made its report a while later, which included the EC scheme.  In 1789, there was no technological or logistical possibility of a direct, national popular vote.

[JamesHackerMP]

"Afraid of democracy".

Wrong.  Yes, they were, but that was already taken care of.  Article I, Sec 2., which describes the House of Representatives (the only part of the government directly-elected at the time) says that, if you're eligible to vote in an election for the lower house of your state legislature, you're likewise eligible to vote in an election for your congressman (member of the House of Reps.)

Since every state levied property requirements to vote in state elections (which varied from state to state) the common man was already excluded and the possibilities of "democracy" and "tyranny of the majority" were already precluded.

[The_Squid]

17 minutes ago, Argus said:

 

Looks to me like they would simply be fulfilling their mandate.

The electoral college consists of 538 electors, and of those, a candidate needs 270 votes to become president. Although the Founding Fathers wanted the people to have a say, there was concern that a charismatic tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come into power. Alexander Hamilton briefly addressed these concerns in the Federalist Papers. The idea was that the electors would be a group of people who would ensure that a qualified person would become president.

https://www.reference.com/government-politics/purpose-electoral-college-c9f12a8548d434ee#

Exactly...   this is the system they made...   I don't understand why people think it's a rubber stamp.  It wasn't supposed to be.

It's a ridiculous system, but this is how they wanted it to work at the time, otherwise why would they have bothered to have an "electoral college" at all?

 There is absolutely nothing that says they must vote as they have been selected to do, although some states have penalties if they don't.

Quote

Despite over 150 other instances of faithlessness as of 2015, faithless electors have not yet affected the results or ultimate outcome of any other election for president and vice president.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

The punishements that states have decreed may be unconstitutional though.   And, clearly, the electoral college can vote for whomever they wish.

Quote

 

The ruling only held that requiring a pledge, not a vote, was constitutional and Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Douglas, wrote in his dissent, "no one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices."^[8] More recent legal scholars believe "a state law that would thwart a federal elector’s discretion at an extraordinary time when it reasonably must be exercised would clearly violate Article II and the Twelfth Amendment."^[9]

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote.^[10]

 

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by The_Squid

[JamesHackerMP]

If the SC ruled such a law unconstitutional, the states might ignore it on the grounds that the constitution specifically grants the authority/power to regulate the election of electors to the state legislatures alone.  But of course the ultimate authority to count (and by extension, to disqualify) a particular vote is Congress.

[?Impact]

37 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

If the college didn't vote Trump in, it would cause a constitutional crisis and there would be riots, and rightfully so.

No, it would be perfectly in line with the constitution. If there are riots, it is only because the childish criminals who support Trump are nothing but useless thugs.

[Omni]

39 minutes ago, Rue said:

For a delegate to ignore their mandate which is to rubber stamp the popular vote is unconstitutional. The people who say its possible are right in theory but not in practice.

A delegate ignoring the popular vote mandate would be challenged in court as engaging in an unconstitutional act. The delegate system was not intended to ignore popular vote just manage it, not second guess it, just make it reportable in a controlled manner avoiding the kind of mess say in Italy with proportional voting.

 

Certain states have pledges from the EC to  vote the pop. vote and some states have laws that cover that, but there is nothing in the constitution that says they have to vote the pop. vote.

[The_Squid]

3 minutes ago, Omni said:

Certain states have pledges from the EC to  vote the pop. vote and some states have laws that cover that, but there is nothing in the constitution that says they have to vote the pop. vote.

And, as I said in my post, there is some doubt whether the states that have these rules are acting within their Constitutional authority. 

[Omni]

59 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:

I hope you're not comparing Americans to chimps, lol.

The results will get out pretty quickly, possibly even today.  C-SPAN usually covers it, for some reason (this time there is obviously more reason to do so.)

you'll know officially Jan 6.

[JamesHackerMP]

Right.  (Thought it was Jan 4? They do it the day after the new Congress convenes?)