Maybe both the popular vote winner and loser?Trump lost two votes, Hilary (the popular vote winner!) lost five in 2016. I only read very brief blurbs on the updated Wiki page and my arithmetic sucks, so I’m probably wrong here, but if that ruling was in place for the election, the EC vote would have flipped from 304 (Trump) to 227 (Hillary) all the way to 306 (still Trump) to 232.
So if this is automatic and the electors aren’t allowed to change their votes, what is the point of electors? Maybe each state’s Secretary of State could send an official letter to someone with their vote totals?
It’s a great question, but I suspect that the only way to get rid of even this most basic and easily disposed of tenet of the 12th Amendment would likely require a counter-amendment to remove. But with that said, I could certainly see someone challenging that Amendment’s provisions based on this SCOTUS ruling today.
CraigM
4793
I mean the EC literally had one job, which it failed at in 2016. Making them just a rubber stamp?
Abolish the EC.
I totally agree.
But I don’t see any way to do that without an Amendment to supersede the 12th Amendment. Because the 12th is super, super specific about the Electoral College process. And I don’t see any way to legislate it away.
I don’t think it banned faithless electors, it just allowed states to prosecute those who are faithless electors.
The EC should be abolished, but it will never happen unless Dems somehow get 38 state legislatures, and if that happens, the EC wouldn’t be a problem for Dems, and they’d keep it around for when they need it.
And with that, even the possibility that the Electoral College might fulfill any useful function is abolished. I mean, it already failed to do its job and protect us from a populist demagogue, so it hardly matters, but can we please just get rid of it now?
If the Democrats could dump the Electoral College, they’d do so immediately and with a swiftness. And in honesty, it might be the root of the huge partisan divide in this country.
But make no mistakes – a Democrat has won the most popular votes in a presidential election in every contest save but one since Clinton’s win in 1992. They’d be happy to have the election for president be a popular vote.
The EC can still do that. It’s just that the Electors, upon doing so, can now face penalties for bucking the will of the states that appointed them. Yes, it’s never going to happen, but then the EC never did anything except rubberstamp the individual states voting results. And honestly, that’s probably how it should be.
The EC is just a weird remnant of an older time that serves no useful purpose now. It’s sort of a constitutional appendix.
Man, the Journalism on this is really, really shoddy. I had to check 4-5 stories before I could even find out what case this was (Baca), and even then, none of the articles included the case name.
Republicans would likely disagree.
The ruling is that states can compel their electors by law, and be punished if they disobey; but they don’t have to have faithless elector laws. So there could be electors with discretion, provided the state doesn’t have a law that compels their vote. This is basically a power-of-the-states ruling. The constitution doesn’t say that states don’t have the power to compel their electors, so they can.
Probably not? I think they like the weighting of votes that favors smaller states disproportionately but if someone proposed a solution that didn’t involve the EC but kept the weighting, they’d be all for it.
Highly recommend scotusblog for all your SCOTUS following needs.
That’s because Republicans are a weird remnant of an older time that serve no useful purpose now. Sort of like an appendix.
The actual rulings are here, and the summaries are quite readable and clear imo.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/
Just scroll down to the ‘recent decisions’ section and pick the gavel symbol to read each one.
RichVR
4806
A swollen, infected appendix.
“purulent” is such a lovely word.
Septic, and actively trying to kill the body politic at this point.
John Roberts was hospitalized after hitting his head in a fall… last month.
We’re learning of it now.
