Victory for conservatives in Electoral College SCOTUS decision
The Supreme Court today upheld state laws that require Electoral College voters to respect the states’ laws in voting for presidential candidates.
Twice in the last twenty years, Republicans have won the majority of the Electoral College votes, winning the presidency, while losing the popular vote due to the outsized populations of New York and California. Liberals have been disgruntled and have been trying to neutralize the Electoral College ever since.
“The question before the Supreme Court was whether the states have the power to remove, fine or, for that matter in a couple of other states, imprison electors who do not vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates they are pledged to support,” reports liberal NPR.
Under the Electoral College system, the electors are instructed under the laws of each state on how to vote. In the case before the Supreme Court, Michael Baca of Colorado tried to vote for a candidate other than the state’s popular vote winner in an attempt to stop Donald Trump from winning the presidency.
Baca’s vote was in contravention to Colorado laws.
In a 9-0 decision Justice Elena Kagan wrote: “Today, we consider whether a State may also penalize an elector for breaking his pledge and voting for someone other than the presidential candidate who won his State’s popular vote. We hold that a State may do so.
“The Constitution’s text and the Nation’s history both support allowing a State to enforce an elector’s pledge to support his party’s nominee — and the state voters’ choice — for President,” she added.
The justices indicated that if electors were allowed to be free agents and vote for who they wished, it could lead to opportunities for vote buying and corruption.
The left has assaulted the Electoral College in recent years, claiming that the country should go to a popular vote. Conservatives counter that big states like New York, California, Florida and Texas would then be the only places that politicians would have to campaign. Smaller states would be ignored.
Says Tom Fitton, head of Judicial Watch: “Abolishing the Electoral College (undoing a fundamental compromise that allowed the establishment of the Constitution) would enable the Left to leverage massive voter fraud in mega blue states such as CA, IL, and NY to steal presidential elections.”
The SCOTUS decision reverses a previous decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that ruled the states had no power to compel the electors to support any candidate.
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