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Anti-Trump Harvard professor warns 20 Republican electors could vote otherwise
Harvard University constitutional law professor Larry Lessig has said that 20 Republican members of the Electoral College are considering voting against Donald Trump, which would put anti-Trump activists more than halfway changing the overall outcome. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesDisgraceful that they wish to subvert the will of the people. Poor losers.
Dec 15th, 2016 - 03:26 pm - Link - Report abuse -2Harvard: “Obviously, whether an elector ultimately votes his or her conscience will depend in part upon whether there are enough doing the same...”
Dec 15th, 2016 - 07:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0This is why certain groups of electors are called sheep.
@Dennis A
Dec 15th, 2016 - 08:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The fact they can subvert the will of the people is kind of deliberately built into the system, and arguably as Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin would actually be realising the will of the people in this case.
They should switch to a majority vote system, preferably with runoff voting if it's close, then this question would never arise.
The will of the people was almost 3,000,000 more votes on H. Clinton than on D. Trump. Only the US election system gave the presidency to Trump.
Dec 16th, 2016 - 08:02 pm - Link - Report abuse -1So, don Alberto, the Americans should ignore their constitutional provisions for presidential election, now that some don't like the outcome? Aren't you supposed to change the rules of the game.... before the game?
Dec 17th, 2016 - 01:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0Has someone shrunk Larry's face...that seems an awful lot of head...
Dec 17th, 2016 - 01:48 am - Link - Report abuse -2Larry's face looks that way because his trousers are so full of shite.
Dec 17th, 2016 - 02:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0@ ML
Dec 18th, 2016 - 01:09 am - Link - Report abuse -1Firstly Don Alberto didn't say the Americans should ignore their constitutional provisions. Secondly they wouldn't need to, there's nothing in the constitution saying the electors must vote for the candidate chosen by their state. It's up to each state to make laws about that. And he's right that the will of the people was not for Trump. The US chose a system where the candidate with the majority of the vote does not necessarily win; too bad for them.
@DT Their election was run according to the rules of the game at the time. Had the rules been different, each side could have campaigned differently and the results may well have been the same, but all of that is speculation. The point is that the ground rules were known and if there is displeasure with those rules then any alteration must be done before the game and not afterwards.
Dec 18th, 2016 - 04:13 am - Link - Report abuse 0Compare this to the 1970 election of Allende in Chile. The Marxist candidate only got a third of the vote. In other words, two-thirds of the electorate wanted someone else. As it turned out, Allende wasn't elected by the voters. He was appointed conditionally by the Chilean legislature. Of course, that was then. Things have changed since.
@ML
Dec 18th, 2016 - 11:20 am - Link - Report abuse -1Totally agree their election was run according to the rules they chose, and I already said so. Also it is true that each side could have campaigned differently if the election was to be decided by popular vote, and even more importantly, might have actually chosen different policies if that was the case.
The point you are missing is that the electors voting against their state's majority does not require changing the rules. It may be frowned upon, it may be considered immoral, but it IS allowed by the rules. So the only question is a moral one.
Also I just looked up the numbers for this election. Trump got less than 63m votes, and over 230m people were eligible to vote. So about 27% of eligible voters actually voted for him. Somewhat more voted for Clinton, and the rest presumably did not want either of them, and who could blame them?
@DT “...voting against their state's majority does not require changing the rules. ”
Dec 18th, 2016 - 01:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In some cases yes this would involve changing the law. I think more than half the states that statutorily obligate require faithful voting. So it is not just a moral or frowned-upon issue as you believe, but a legal one as well in those states.
In the last 100 years in the US, more than 99 percent of their electors have remained faithful, in spite of the cavalcade of dubious characters that have been presented by their parties over the years.
@ ML
Dec 18th, 2016 - 06:10 pm - Link - Report abuse -1I was over-generalising; what I said in my previous comment is more accurate: there is nothing in the constitution that says they must vote the same way as their state, it is up to the states to make laws about that. Some have done so, some haven't. Even among those with laws, it is often only a fine, which does not change the vote cast. It seems the system was deliberately designed this way in the US constitution.
And yes, most of the electors have remained faithful, and I expect most will this time. But it's also true they were given the power to vote with their own conscience.
In this case we have a candidate with policies that many people consider would be disastrous for the US, who lost the popular vote by a wide margin, meaning that the majority of people in the US do not actually support the outcome, and who many people in his own party do not support, since he is far from being a typical Republican. In short, this is exactly the sort of situation when the electors should think very hard about whether to keep their promise.
@DT - The majority of the states in the US have laws that require electors to perform the representation for which they were selected and sworn. Thus the situation is not simply a matter of being simply “faithful” but one that involves legal obligations. If you were Argentine you could be forgiven for failing to comprehend the concept of legal obligations.
Dec 18th, 2016 - 11:22 pm - Link - Report abuse -1Clearly you are distressed by the outcome of the election and deeply vexed by the long-standing constitutional provisions that created the present situation, and you wish to propose unlawful actions on the part of the designated participants to allow a post-event change of the rules and change of outcome -- after the game has been played.
@ML
Dec 19th, 2016 - 08:35 am - Link - Report abuse 0Clearing I am proposing nothing. It was the article that said some electors were considering voting against their state.
I am saying two things: one, that Trump does not have popular support, and two, not all electors are legally bound to vote for a certain candidate, so them doing so would NOT be changing the rules.
It seems as though Trump had more than enough support, both from voters and electors. There were only two defections, far from the predicted 20, whereas Clinton had five faithless electors. Game over.
Dec 20th, 2016 - 02:53 am - Link - Report abuse -1Larry/democrats are - as usual - full of shit.
Dec 20th, 2016 - 11:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It must really hurt that America choses Trump - as flawed as he is - over the best that the democrats have to offer.
Not sure that the Clinton was the best they had to offer, but it's what they did offer.
Dec 21st, 2016 - 01:45 am - Link - Report abuse +1Commenting for this story is now closed.
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