Clinton electors lobbying for EC protest votes? *UPDATE* 29 electors want intel briefing

[SteveRogers]

While I obviously support abolishing the electoral college, we could start by getting rid of electors and just making it a numerical count. Surely we could have widespread agreement from both parties and practically every state that Faithless Electors are a bad thing.

Unlike the NPVIC though, eliminating electors would actually require a constitutional amendment, right?  Seems highly unlikely that we'll see such an amendment any time soon.  The NPVIC passing seems far more likely to me than an amendment along the lines that you're suggesting.

While I guess some Congressmen could vote against such an amendment just out of spite or hate, I can't imagine that an amendment banning faithless electors could possibly fail in Congress, or among the states. How could anyone argue for keeping them in a way that would sway over 1/3 of Congress?

Perhaps by making the same arguments the founders made when they designed the electoral college as a deliberative body?

[SteveRogers]

Some posters saying we need to force the electors to follow the will of the people kinda defeats the whole reason they came up with the electoral college in the first place.

Yeah, that's classic conservative doublespeak. "We must respect what the founders laid down in the original constitution except for the parts I find inconvenient."

[SteveRogers]

How is something like that even possible? Every state should have laws against faithless electors and only the most loyal partisans should be chosen as electors.

This. We need to avoid crazy situations like what we may see later this month.
the electors need to be bound.

The whole point of the electoral college was to act as a check on the people, who have proven this year that they cannot be trusted in terms of choosing a president. If the founders didn't want the electors to be free to be faithless, they would have made the EC simply a numerical count, not an actual group of people. We need to respect the will of the founders, take all faithless elector laws off the books, and let the electors live up to their real job - acting as a check on a populace filled with low-information voters.

That might have been the intent of the founders, but within three elections they had figured out that it didn't work that way, and they amended the Constitution after the fourth.

If you're referring to the 12th amendment, that addressed a wholly different problem with the electoral college by separating the votes for president and Vice President. But electors continued to be unbound by any popular vote in many states for quite some time after.

[SteveRogers]

How is something like that even possible? Every state should have laws against faithless electors and only the most loyal partisans should be chosen as electors.

This. We need to avoid crazy situations like what we may see later this month.
the electors need to be bound.

The whole point of the electoral college was to act as a check on the people, who have proven this year that they cannot be trusted in terms of choosing a president. If the founders didn't want the electors to be free to be faithless, they would have made the EC simply a numerical count, not an actual group of people. We need to respect the will of the founders, take all faithless elector laws off the books, and let the electors live up to their real job - acting as a check on a populace filled with low-information voters.

That might have been the intent of the founders, but within three elections they had figured out that it didn't work that way, and they amended the Constitution after the fourth.

If you're referring to the 12th amendment, that addressed a wholly different problem with the electoral college by separating the votes for president and Vice President. But electors continued to be unbound by any popular vote in many states for quite some time after.

Nonsense!!!

Do you think 73 electors in nine different states just happened to put Jefferson and Burr on their ballots, and 64 other electors in ten different states just happened to put Adams and Pinckney on their ballots?

NOPE. 73 electors who belonged to Party A voted for Jefferson and Burr. 64 electors who belonged to Party B voted for Adams and Pinckney.

I'm not sure what point you think you're making. Can you clarify?

[SteveRogers]

Colorado judge rules that faithless electors in the state could face criminal prosecution and be disqualified and replaced as an elector. So I guess we won't have any non Clinton votes in Colorado.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/13/denver-judge-orders-faithless-colorado-electors-vote-clinton/

Wonderful news!

The Colorado electors involved in that suit sound pretty determined. My guess is this ruling will be far from the last word on this.

[SteveRogers]

At least it looks like we're going to get some faithless elector laws tested in court after this. I wonder if a SCOTUS ruling striking down penalties for faithless electors would create any momentum for abolishing the electoral college.