Colorado could prove rocky

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

--Expect a legal challenge if this passes.  The basis would be that the Constitution gives state legislatures the authority to choose a method for selecting electors.  Can a popular vote usurp this authority?

Yes.  The Colorado Constitution gives the initiative process in that state the explicit status of being a use of legislative power.  In good old-fashioned populist fashion, the people are the legislature.

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Actually the law calls for a majority of electoral votes cast, not of electoral votes that could be cast,  If the situation were as given above with no electoral votes sent to Congress by January 6, then Kerry would win 269-262.  Now if conflicting slates were submitted then Congress would have the choice of which slate to use.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

That may be why this initiative also gives the General Assembly the authority to change the method of selecting electors if they so choose.  Since Colorado's Constitution allows for initiatives to also pass oridinary legislation as well as constitutional amendments, I don't think that tack is going to send the initiative off course.  Nor will the fact that it opens up the possibility that this would only be used  this year.  After all, Colorado's 3 Republican electors were chosen in 1876 using a one time-only system, which is part of the reason why we didn't elect President Tilden.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Actually the law calls for a majority of electoral votes cast, not of electoral votes that could be cast,  If the situation were as given above with no electoral votes sent to Congress by January 6, then Kerry would win 269-262.  Now if conflicting slates were submitted then Congress would have the choice of which slate to use.

The Constitution says majority of electors appointed.  The appointment occurs on November 2nd, even if who was appointed isn't determined until later.

Wrong.  3 USC 1 specifies November 2nd as the day they are supposed to be appointed, but then 3 USC 2 allows for State legislatures to appoint them on a later date, if they fail to be appointed then.  Hence election day is the earliest day that electors can be appointed and Federal law thus explictly allows for the possibility of electors not being appointed.  So If Colorado fails to appoint its 9 electors, the winner would be whoever has the votes of a majority of the 529 appointed electors.  If electors were appointed but failed to cast their ballots then they would still count in determining how many votes were needed to win.  The far likelier result if the referrendum passes is that two competing slates of electors will be sent to Congress for them to decide which to use.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Actually the law calls for a majority of electoral votes cast, not of electoral votes that could be cast,  If the situation were as given above with no electoral votes sent to Congress by January 6, then Kerry would win 269-262.  Now if conflicting slates were submitted then Congress would have the choice of which slate to use.

The Constitution says majority of electors appointed.  The appointment occurs on November 2nd, even if who was appointed isn't determined until later.

Wrong.

Since it was your assertion that the US Constitution says that it is a majority of electoral votes cast, am I to understand that this is your acknowledgement of my correction, and now you are disagreeing about whether an appointment occurs on November 2?

I was making the assumption that all electors appointed would actually cast a ballot.  That seems to be a reasonable assumption.  IIRC, even the DC elector who chose to not vote for Gore cast a blank ballot.

If your interpretation were correct then Lincoln never had to worry about losing in 1864 even in the depths of the when it looked like McClellan would win, between the safe Republican upper north and the absent Confederate south, McClellan couldn't have gained a majority of electors taht could be appointed.

States still could appoint directly on November 2 by having their legislatures appoint them themselves, so the law is not being vague at all. and goes back to at least 1875.  Title 3 was reenacted into positive law in 1948.  3 USC 1 and 2 reenacted RS 131 and RS 132 and I don't have access at the moment to a copy of th Revised Statutes of the US to determine the when the laws they were a codification of were enacted, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are unchanged from the days when most state legislatures didn't bother to ask the people who should be electors and appointed them themselves.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If your interpretation were correct then Lincoln never had to worry about losing in 1864 even in the depths of the when it looked like McClellan would win, between the safe Republican upper north and the absent Confederate south, McClellan couldn't have gained a majority of electors taht could be appointed.

Huh?   My interpretation is: The Constitution says majority of electors appointed.   I don't see a conection between this and the 1864 election (other than the Southern states did not appoint electors).

Then I don't understand your original objection to my point that if the result of the Colorado inititiative passing causes none of Colorado's electors to not vote, something which realistically would happen only if no electors are appointed, (or do you expect Colorado to appoint nine idiots who all decide to not vote?) then Kerry would win if he had a majority of electoral votes from the electors of the other 49 States and DC, even if he did not have 270 EVs.  I clearly stated in my original post that if there were multiple slates from Colorado that which to accept would be Congress's job to do.  Indeed, under the law, they can't count the votes until they do decide which slate to accept, even if the result wouldn't matter because a candidate had 270 from the other States.  (To be precise they would have counted, the first five States alphabetically, and be stuck waiting to decided how the sixth, Colorado, should be counted, a bit pf precision that shouldn;t matter, but you seem to have a talent for picking at irrelevant nits.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Then I don't understand your original objection to my point that if the result of the Colorado inititiative passing causes none of Colorado's electors to not vote, something which realistically would happen only if no electors are appointed, (or do you expect Colorado to appoint nine idiots who all decide to not vote?) then Kerry would win if he had a majority of electoral votes from the electors of the other 49 States and DC, even if he did not have 270 EVs.

I am unable to parse this.  What do you mean by "causes none to not vote"?   Is this that the same as "causes all to vote"?

OK, so poor proofreading on my part caused me to mistate what I intended to say by doubling the negative, which should have been single.  The context certainly made clear what I was saying, so once again, you've decided to pick at irrelevant nits.  This is an internet forum, not polished prose.  Am I to assume that because of your disdain for those that mangle the language while saying something that you hope that Bush fails to win this November?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Let's start from the beginning.  There are 538 elector jobs available, apportioned among the 51 States (for this discussion I will treat the District of Columbia as a State, and Congress as its legislature as per the 23rd Amendment).  I think you and I agree that it is not a majority of this potential number that is significant for election of the President and Vice President.

Agreed.

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I take a different point of departure.
3 U.S.C. 6 requires that the executive of each State to send to the Congress (and several others) the credentials of the electors as soon as it ascertained which are to be appointed.  If no such certificate is issued then I feel that no electors have been appointed.

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I think that she did cast a ballot, but even if she hadn't she had still been appointed so it took 270 votes to win in 2000, not 269.

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A lot depends upon how entwined the courts get in this issue.  It is entirely possible that a court might issue an injunction against issuing the certification of election required by 3 U.S.C. 6 which if it hadn't been overruled by the time to count the votes are to be counted would mean that no electors would be appointed from Colorado.  It is also possible that at different points in the appeals process, multiple certificates get issued.

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I would view the lottery more as part of the process of ascertainment described under 3 USC 6.

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If the dispute ends up in the lap of Congress, then given that I expect the GOP to retain control of both the House and the Senate, I expect that it will be decided in Bush's favor.  If the Senate does manage to end up in the hands of the Democrats which seems possible but not probable, then the process could grind to a halt, as if there is agreement that nine electors have been appointed, just not which nine, then while they could decde to not count Colorado's votes, a candidate would still need 270 votes to win.  Once a 9 GOP elector slate manages to get certified under 3 USC 6, then if the question of which slate to be used arises, the numbers are such that Bush will be elected after a politically bruising battle in Congress if need be.  Kerry will need to either get 270 EV's outside of Colorado, have 266 EV's outside of Colorado and only his 4 Colorado EV slate get certified under 3 USC 6, or have 265 EV's outside of Colorado and have no slate certified.  Ironically, if the result is outside Colorado Kerry 265 to Bush 264, it will be in the interests of Bush (as he should hadily win election in the House) to see that a slate, any slate, even a 5-4 Bush-Kerry split slate from Colorado gets certified.  The critical point is the 266-269 Kerry non-Colorado EV range.