Posted on 09/13/2012 10:03:08 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
At least three Republican electors say they may not support their party’s presidential ticket when the Electoral College meets in December to formally elect the next president, escalating tensions within the GOP and adding a fresh layer of intrigue to the final weeks of the White House race.
The electors — all supporters of former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul — told The Associated Press they are exploring options should Mitt Romney win their states. They expressed frustration at how Republican leaders have worked to suppress Paul’s conservative movement and his legion of loyal supporters.
“They’ve never given Ron Paul a fair shot, and I’m disgusted with that. I’d like to show them how disgusted I am,” said Melinda Wadsley, an Iowa mother of three who was selected as a Republican elector earlier this year. She said Paul is the better choice and noted that the Electoral College was founded with the idea that electors wouldn’t just mimic the popular vote.
The defection of multiple electors would be unprecedented in the last 116 years of U.S. politics. It also would raise the remote possibility that the country could even end up with a president and vice president from different parties.
Because so-called faithless electors are rare, the position of elector is largely viewed as symbolic. Each party chooses people to serve as electors in the 50 states, and electors from the winning party convene in each state capital in December to officially select the president and vice president.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ron Paul people are Occupy Wall Street people who know the Constitution.
I can't write what I'd like to do to these Ron Paul people if they throw the election to Obama.
Give them to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tell the hood they made the movie.
What does that even mean? Paul had the same shot in the primaries as everyone else.
Let me propose one. Tar and feathering.
They should be tarred and feathered.
That would be entirely appropriate, considering that the person they follow has, on Iranian TV, apologized for terrorist bombers and has condemned Israel for operating what amounts to concentration camps. If Paul is right, then they have nothing to worry about.
You need to study the Electoral College and how its members are selected.
It’s certainly not unprecedented.
A Nixon elector voted for the libertarian ticket in 1972.
I suppose what is meant is that the faithless elector voted for the opponent rather than a 3rd choice?
In 1892, North Dakota cast one vote for Weaver-Field (49.0% popular), one vote for Harrison-Reid (48.5%), and one vote for Cleveland-Stevenson (0%). I don’t know what the law was at the time — whether that was one faithless elector or two.
I will never respect Ron Paul until he comes out and tells his supporters, “I won’t defeat Obama. You need to support the person who can.” He can put a stop to this, and if he doesn’t he is just a grandstanding attention whore.
the republicans need to unite behind one candidate. romney is not perfect, but we need to get behind him.
IIRC, it only goes to the House if the electors don't have a majority for any one candidate.
I stand by my statement.
Certainly not a Ron Paul supporter or booster but just gotta love it seeing the Romneybots get their panties all in a bunch over such nonsensical BS as this article. They’re such a riot.
That is their right as Electors. In fact, that is part of the reason for the Electoral College.
Fortunately, they CAN be replaced.
The founders despised pure democracy because it inevitably leads to dictatorship and a loss of freedom. That's why they created the electoral college to prevent the direct popular election of a president. However, despite these efforts, the current electoral college system has been essentially reduced to a slightly skewed form of pure democracy since the college members have to vote exactly as the people do. You may as well not even go through the motions of electing electoral college voters. You may as well, just assign each state a point value and say, whoever carries the most points wins the presidency outright without any need to have the Electoral College vote. The electoral college electors don't play a role in the election anyway if they're forced to vote in a predetermined way.
At this rate, the electoral college may as well be abolished. The difference from pure democracy is almost negligible under the current system.
Is there a statutory penalty in that law? A law without an enforcement mechanism is only a suggestion.
Read Federalist Paper 68. The entire point of the electoral college is to prevent the popular vote from electing the president. The people are supposed to elect people whose judgement they trust to be electors with the independence to cast a vote for whomever they think best suited to the presidency. The Founders did NOT want the people to elect the president directly. By forcing duly elected electors to mirror the popular vote, we are basically allowing direct democracy which the Constitution sought to prevent. However, the progressive media and schools have taught children to worship pure democracy and direct election of EVERY office in the land as an unquestionable dogma, and it is political heresy to teach otherwise.
You may disagree with the Founders design of our Constitutional system and you are free to advocate to change it in anyway you want, but it is not fascism. Fascism is forcing an elected elector to vote for someone for whom they do not wish to vote. Binding the electoral college electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote in each state subverts the Founders vision for our republic and the constitution they designed to protect our liberties. You may as well abolish the electoral college entirely and let the popular vote rule the day. There is almost no significant difference between direct election and the current structuring of the electoral college any way.
Apparently the last time there was more than one faithless elector was in the 1896 Vice Presidential vote. Four electors pledged to Bryan-Watson instead voted for Bryan-Sewell.
Furthermore, the 1892 result is not mentioned among the faithless electors. So it would appear that North Dakota chose its electors differently back then — not by popular vote. Also that year, 1 Oregon elector voted for Weaver and 1 Ohio elector voted for Cleveland (with Harrison winning the popular vote in both states).
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