Foolishness

Or sore, childish losers.  Or outright dishonesty.  That’s the behavior of a couple of Colorado Presidential Electors who are members, also, of the Democratic Party.  These two have filed a federal suit challenging the constitutionality of the State’s law that requires them to vote for the State’s choice in the just concluded Presidential election.  The State’s law is a winner-take-all requirement: Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won Colorado, they’re required to cast their Electoral votes for Clinton—but they’re so desperate to block President-Elect Donald Trump, they don’t want to; they want to vote for a third party candidate if they can get enough other Electoral College voters to similarly turn their coats and vote for a common third party candidate to deny Trump 270 Electoral College votes.  (Never mind that that would just move the election to the Republican House of Representatives.  Logic has never been much of a player for the Left.)

These two persons are basing their suit’s claim on Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

Though Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine won the majority vote in Colorado and are qualified for office, plaintiffs cannot be constitutionally compelled to vote for them.  Plaintiffs are entitled to exercise their judgment and free will to vote for whomever they believe to be the most qualified and fit for the offices of president and vice president, whether those candidates are Democrats, Republicans or from a third-party.

And from the complaint itself:

Many states, including Colorado, require their Presidential Electors to vote consistent with the popular vote in the state. Thus, despite the plain language of Article II of the US Constitution, as amended by the Twelfth Amendment, and the Founders’ intent that the Presidential Electors be a deliberative and independent body free to cast votes for whomever they deem to be the most fit and qualified candidates, Messrs Trump and Pence—if the state statutes are enforced—may “win” the election while also losing, by historical margins, the nationwide popular vote.

Since these persons mention the plain language of Article II and the 12th, they—and their lawyers—might want actually to review that plain language.  Here’s the relevant part of Article II:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….

All the 12th Amendment does is fix the mechanics of voting and the number of still-eligible candidates if the contest must go to the Federal House and Senate.

[I]n such Manner as the Legislature…may direct: which plainly includes for whom and under what State-wide vote outcome as a State might choose to direct.  The Electors are representatives of the State, not of themselves.  No, they are not entitled (such a popular term for the denizens of the Left [/snark]) to exercise their judgment and free will.  They are required to reflect the collective will of their State.

The suit should be tossed, and the lawyers complicit in bringing it should be sanctioned by the Federal court whose time they wasted with this cynical frivolity.

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