Tag: US Electoral College

Ohio Attorney General Yost Taking ‘Deep Dive into the Legal Theories’ of Texas Lawsuit Filed in U.S. Supreme Court

Jack Windsor

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the United States Supreme Court, according to the AG’s December 8 press release.

The Lone Star State’s top legal advisor alleges that the four states broke federal election laws by ignoring the role of the legislature in each state to choose electors and make election laws.

The Center Square reported Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and South Dakota are also expected to join Texas in the lawsuit.

The Ohio Star contacted Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to find out if Ohio will join.

Read the full story

Changes to Pennsylvania Election Laws Followed by Last-Minute Maneuvers May Lead to Historic Mishaps

Jack Windsor

The Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 77 in October 2019 to make voting “more convenient and more secure” according to Governor Tom Wolf (D).  

Major features of the act include:

extending voter registration from 30 days before an election to 15 days;
allowing mail-in voting without an excuse to vote mail-in versus in-person;
extending mail-in request (online and by mail) and submission up to 50 days before an election;
extending the mail-in and absentee submission deadline from 5:00 p.m. the Friday before the election to 8:00 p.m. the day of the election.

Read the full story

Proposed Ohio Constitutional Amendment to Award Electoral Votes to Winner of National Popular Vote Clears Initial Hurdle

Zachery Schmidt

A state constitutional amendment to award Ohio’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote cleared of one of its earliest hurdles this week. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost called it a “fair and truthful statement of the proposed law” in an April 1 letter to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. The amendment was submitted to Yost’s office by election lawyer Don McTigue, who sent a petition to the Attorney General’s Office with 1,000 signatures. The petition states: This amendment would add Article XX, Section 1 of the Ohio Constitution to: Express the will of the people that every vote for president be valued equally and that the candidate who wins the most votes nationally becomes President. Require the General Assembly, within sixty days of the Amendment’s adoption, take all necessary legislative action so that the winner of the national popular vote is elected President. In his response, Yost said it is his “statutory duty to determine” whether the petition contained a “fair and truthful statement of the proposed law or constitutional amendment.” With Yost ’s certification, the proposal heads to the Ohio Ballot Board, which has 10 days to determine if “the submitted ballot language only contains one…

Read the full story

Warren Calls for Scrapping US Electoral College in 2020 TV Town Hall

Admin

Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of more than a dozen Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination, on Monday called for the scrapping of the electoral college, the method used to elect U.S. presidents. It was the first time Warren has explicitly called to eliminate the system established by the U.S. Constitution, in which each state is allotted a set number of “electors” based on the combined total of the state’s representation in Congress. Warren was participating in a televised CNN town hall in Jackson, Mississippi, when she was asked how, if elected, she would expand access to voting, including for those convicted of felonies. Warren, 69, said there should be an amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote, and called for the repeal of laws that make it more difficult to cast ballots. She then lamented that White House candidates do not spend much time in places like Mississippi, which is conservative, and therefore not considered a swing state in U.S. presidential elections. “Well, my view is that every vote matters. And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting. And that means get rid of the electoral college…

Read the full story