Tag: Electoral College

Two Georgia Representatives to Challenge Electoral College Votes

Corinne Murdock

Two of Georgia’s representatives plan to challenge the Electoral College votes during the January 6th session of Congress. Representative Jody Hice (R-GA-10) and Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) will join a congressional coalition in objecting the electoral college votes.

Hice met with the President Donald Trump to strategize their objection to the Electors earlier this week. Others in the meeting included Trump’s legal team, Vice President Mike Pence, members of the House Freedom Caucus, Greene, and several other congressional members.

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Madison Cawthorn Says He’s Contesting the Election, Will Fund Primary Opponents Against GOP Reps Who Don’t Speak Out

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Incoming Republican North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn said at a Turning Point USA conference Monday that he will contest the election and fund primary opponents against GOP members not publicly urging “for fair, free and just elections.”

Cawthorn said the Constitution says “that state legislators are the only body that can change election law within their own states,” video of the conference shows. He said numerous governors and state secretaries in swing states have violated the law.

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Legislatures in States Like Georgia Could Name Electoral College Electors, Giuliani Says

Jason M. Reynolds

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s election lawyer, on Sunday laid out a possible path to victory that includes the legislatures in states that include Georgia, as well as the Supreme Court.

The legislatures in states like Georgia could take action voter fraud by naming Electoral College electors, which would likely push the election into the Supreme Court, Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Sunday. He appeared on Maria Baritomo’s Sunday Morning Futures.

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December 8 Deadline for Selection of Electors Does Not Apply to Disputed States, Amistad Project Says

Jason M. Reynolds

In a white paper released Friday, The Amistad Project of the non-partisan Thomas More Society is arguing that the current Electoral College deadlines are both arbitrary and a direct impediment to states’ obligations to investigate disputed elections.

The research paper breaks down the history of Electoral College deadlines and makes clear that this election’s Dec. 8 and Dec. 14 deadlines for the selection of Electors, the assembly of the Electoral College, and the tallying of its votes, respectively, are not only elements of a 72-year old federal statute with no Constitutional basis, but are also actively preventing the states from fulfilling their constitutional — and ethical — obligation to hold free and fair elections. Experts believe that the primary basis for these dates was to provide enough time to affect the presidential transition of power, a concern which is obsolete in the age of internet and air travel.

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Trump Could Receive Second Term from U.S. House in ‘Contingent Election’

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Though chances are slim and the final electoral count is still pending, a little-known provision of the U.S. Constitution provides an opening for President Trump to possibly salvage victory through what’s known as a “contingent election.”

Under the 12th Amendment, in a contingent election one person does not win a majority of Electoral College votes, and the election is thrown to the U.S. House of Representatives. There, each state’s delegation has one vote, and a candidate must receive the votes of a majority of state delegations to win. Because of the timing, the new Congress is the one that decides, not the outgoing one.

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Tennessee Star’s National Correspondent Neil W. McCabe Weighs in on Dominion Software and the Lack of Republican Leadership Down in Georgia

Julie Carr

Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent from Washington, D.C. Neil W. McCabe to the show to give his projection on the electoral college final count for Trump and Biden and the lack of Republican leadership in Georgia.

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Colorado Joins Growing List of States Who Pledge to Dedicate Their Electoral Votes to the Winner of the Popular Vote

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Colorado residents approved a measure Wednesday to join a list of states pledging to award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who obtains the majority of the popular vote.

Proposition 113 passed with roughly 52% approval from voters, entering Colorado into the Interstate Popular Vote Compact, according to the Denver Post. The state joins 15 other jurisdictions across the U.S., including California, Illinois, New York and Washington, according to the compact’s website.

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Constitutional Scholar Alan Dershowitz Spoke, Fielded Questions at the 2020 National Constitution Bee

Corinne Murdock

Leading constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz spoke during the 2020 National Constitution Bee on Saturday. All contestants had the opportunity to join the video call and ask questions afterwards.

Dershowitz touched on topics including Electoral College, impeachment, equal protection, and Supreme Court justice term limits.

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Justices Rule 9-0: States Can Bind Presidential Electors’ Votes

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In a decision flavored with references to “Hamilton” and “Veep,” the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College.

The ruling, in cases in Washington state and Colorado just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind electors to vote for the popular-vote winner, as electors almost always do anyway.

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‘Popular Vote’ Movement Would Shift Power to Big Cities, Experts Warn

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The Electoral College is under threat from states looking to enact legislation that ignores local voters in favor of national election results, experts said during a panel Thursday at The Heritage Foundation.

Responding to a wave of 15 states that have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact since the 2016 election, they argued that the Founders instituted the Electoral College to ensure stability and representation to all states.

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Commentary: Maine and Nevada Show Why the Electoral College Helps Small States, Not Red States

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by Hans Von Spakovsky   Last month, both Maine and Nevada did what was in the best interests of their states: They rejected bills that would have enrolled their states in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an unwise effort to override the Electoral College. In Maine, it was killed by legislators in the state House after it passed Maine’s Senate. In Nevada, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed the bill that had been passed by members of his own party in the Legislature. The National Popular Vote compact, which is an agreement between states, requires a participating state to award all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes across the nation, not to the candidate who actually won the vote in that state. In other words, states are agreeing to ignore what the majority of voters in their state decides when it comes to who they believe should be president. This interstate compact has been sold to state governments as a means to abolish what supporters wrongly claim is the “outmoded, undemocratic Electoral College.” What is “undemocratic” is an agreement that means that even if every single voter in a state voted against a presidential…

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Commentary: The One-Two Punch to Knock Out Electoral Democracy

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by Michael S. Kochin   If you thought, or hoped, that the brave (or nobly self-interested) Democratic Governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak had thwarted the push for a National Popular Vote by vetoing the bill, think again. On June 12, 2019, Oregon Democratic Governor Kate Brown signed it into law for her state. As of this writing 15 states and the District of Columbia, each with 196 electoral votes, purport to have ratified it. According to its terms as few as three more states (say Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) with 74 electoral votes need to enact the bill for it to go into effect. Should it go into effect, the compacting states, together accumulating a majority of the Electoral College, will cast their electoral votes for whomever is the plurality winner of what the scheme’s backers call “the national popular vote:” whichever presidential and vice-presidential slate gets a plurality of votes when the total votes of all the states (compacting and non-compacting) are aggregated. The scheme, of course, is an effort to change the Constitution without the bother of securing the consent of three-fourths of the states that the Article V Amendment procedure requires. It is also of questionable validity without the consent of Congress.…

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Ohio Petition to Bypass Electoral College Abandoned Days After Launching

Andrew Shirley

A push to amend the Ohio State Constitution to negate the electoral college came to an end after just nine days on Tuesday. On March 21, the law firm McTigue & Colombo LLC filed two petitions with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to create a new constitutional amendment. The two petitions were for the same amendment, but contained different summaries, officially titled the “Presidential Election Popular Vote.” The proposed constitutional Amendment “would add Article XX, Section 1 to 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. This Amendment may result in Ohio President Electors voting for the Presidential candidate who won the national popular vote but not Ohio’s popular vote. The amendment would ensure that in every future presidential election, the winner of the national popular vote would be guaranteed all of Ohio’s electoral votes, regardless of how the state voted. In the 2016 presidential election, President Donald Trump won 306…

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Commentary: A Bad Idea for Ohio and a Terrible Idea for America

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by CHQ Staff   A proposal making its way through the Ohio Statehouse would award Ohio’s electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in presidential elections if it passes. According to reporting by Breitbart’s Katherine Rodriguez, the constitutional amendment, which state lawmakers certified on Monday, would require state lawmakers to ensure state electoral votes would go to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the candidate who wins the most votes within Ohio. If Ohio’s legislature approves the measure, it would be the 14th state legislative body to pass a bill agreeing to award Electoral College votes to a presidential candidate who wins the popular vote, noted Ms. Rodriguez. No Republican has ever been elected President without Ohio, and Ohio has furnished eight Presidents with Ohio roots – all Republicans. So why the Buckeye State’s Republican-controlled legislature and Governor would want to dilute their state’s Electoral College votes via this Democrat proposal is a complete mystery to us. As we explained in our article “Far Left Anti-Electoral College Plan Building Momentum” Democrats have long opposed the Electoral College because with overwhelming margins of victory in high-population states like California they could dominate future presidential elections based…

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Elections Omnibus Bill Would Make Minnesota Member of National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Anthony Gockowski

An omnibus bill that could radically transform elections in Minnesota recently passed out of committee and is making its way through the Minnesota House. Among the most drastic proposals in the bill is one that would make Minnesota a member of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is an agreement among states to award their entire Electoral College delegation to the winner of the national popular vote. Since 2007, 12 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, and several other states are currently considering joining. The agreement wouldn’t take effect until its member states cumulatively possess a majority of the electoral votes. The bill would also place Minnesota on a growing list of states to automatically restore voting rights to felons once they have completed their time behind bars. The omnibus bill incorporates elements of at least 10 bills introduced in the Minnesota House this session, and is sponsored by Rep. Raymond Dehn (DFL-Minneapolis), chair of the House Subcommittee on Elections, who said his proposal would bring “more integrity” to elections. The bill passed out of the House Subcommittee on Elections, and will next head to the House Government Operations Committee, according to a press release.…

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Steve Cohen of Memphis Says Electoral College Designed to Hurt Black People

Chris Butler

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, says our nation’s Electoral College was “conceived in sin” and invented to keep black people down, according to various media outlets. “This is all conceived in sin and perpetuating slavery on the American people and on the African-American people, directly,” Cohen said on “CNN Right Now” Tuesday, according to The Daily Caller. The Trump Administration waived its executive privilege when it cooperated with the investigation. Muller is required to give his report to the AG, but the White House has no right to revise or edit the report before providing it to the @HouseJudiciary. #MuellerReport pic.twitter.com/qPP1dZXyX2 — Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) March 19, 2019 “We need to give the people who understand from town halls, like Elizabeth Warren had in Memphis on Sunday and in Jackson, and I think today in Birmingham, the opportunity to vote. And as Sen. Warren said, this doesn’t give the people in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles the right to decide who wins. It gives everybody that’s not in one of the — the targeted states in the Electoral College the opportunity to have their vote count.” In a separate article, Breitbart quoted Cohen as saying “the country is different than…

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Far Left Anti-Electoral College Plan Building Momentum

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by CHQ Staff   What would you say if we told you Democrats have a plan to change the Constitution without going through the arduous process of amending it according to the process set forth in Article V of our government’s founding document? Well, get ready, because they do, and according to our friend Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, their anti-Constitutional plan is gaining ground. Democrats have long opposed the Electoral College because with overwhelming margins of victory in high-population states like California they could dominate future presidential elections based on the popular vote, so they have concocted a plan to try to bypass the constitutional amendment process by constructing a multi-state compact to allocate their Electoral votes according to the popular vote. von Spakovsky says the movement going on in all 50 states is sponsored by the National Popular Vote, an advocacy group in California, that claims they can get rid of the Electoral College’s effects by having the states agree to a state compact. “The state compact they are pushing is for state legislatures to agree that in future presidential elections they will not…

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Ohio House Holds First Hearing on Bill to Award State’s Electoral College Delegates to Winner of Popular Vote

Anthony Gockowski

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio House Federalism Committee held its first hearing Wednesday for a bill that would make Ohio a member of the “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.” Since 2007, 12 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, while both the Colorado General Assembly and the New Mexico Legislature voted in favor of joining this year. Under the agreement, Ohio’s entire Electoral College delegation would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote. The bill, HB 70, is sponsored by Rep. David Leland (D-Columbus), who testified before the House Federalism Committee Wednesday. “This is a change that is long overdue. Two-thirds of the presidents elected in this century have been chosen by the Electoral College without a corresponding majority of the electorate for their first terms. Put simply, the person the people chose to be their president in their first term was ignored 66 percent of the time in this century,” Leland said during his testimony. He went on to argue that the Electoral College “rewards small states while punishing larger ones,” such as Ohio. “The population of Wyoming is 584,000 and they receive 3 Electors. This…

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Commentary: Leftists’ Efforts to Ruin the Electoral College Gains Steam as 181 Votes Now Go to the Popular Winner of Presidential Elections

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by Jarrett Stepman   Colorado is joining a list of states attempting to overturn the way Americans have selected their presidents for over two centuries. The Colorado Legislature recently passed a bill to join an interstate effort called the “interstate compact,” to attempt to sidestep the Electoral College system defined by the Constitution. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” and vowed to sign the bill into law. So far, 12 states representing 172 Electoral College votes have passed the initiative into law. With the addition of Colorado (which has nine votes), that number will rise to 181. They need 270 for the compact to go into effect. It would then undoubtedly be challenged in the courts. Some major voices on the left were gleeful about the potential change. Time to make Electoral College a vestige of the past. It’s undemocratic, forces candidates to ignore majority of the voters and campaign in a small number of states. The presidency is our one national office and should be decided – directly – by the voters https://t.co/OyRbXOiBpz — Eric Holder (@EricHolder) February 26, 2019 While the Constitution, intentionally, gives wide latitude to states to create their own electoral…

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Colorado State Senate Votes to Strip the People’s Voice in Presidential Elections

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voters polling place

by Jay Whig   Colorado, having cast its electoral votes for a loser in the 2016 presidential election, may not be content merely to be a one-time loser. The Colorado State Senate voted Tuesday – along party lines – to adopt Senate Bill 19-042, a bill to require that Colorado’s electors vote in presidential elections according to the national popular vote. The remarkable lesson Colorado Democrats have taken from their 2016 loss: best to forego a say in presidential elections altogether. It is hard to keep up with this sort of political genius. Had a law like SB 19-042 been in effect in 2016, it would have made not an iota of difference. Colorado’s electors cast their ballots for the candidate who won the national popular vote, because that is how the people of Colorado chose to vote. But if the bill clears the Colorado State House – sources say it is assured to win the governor’s signature – that exercise of political choice will be a thing of the past. Coloradans’ votes in the only national elections in America will be like – well, you know – to a gelding, just a memory. It can’t be lost on Colorado Democrats that there is no…

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Despite Steve Cohen Efforts, Leftists Have Previously Defended Electoral College

Chris Butler
Steve Cohen

Memphis-area U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) may want to do away with the country’s Electoral College, but scholars and journalists alike – even liberal ones – have said in years past that it’s a bad idea. As The Tennessee Star reported, Cohen, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced a bill to eliminate the Electoral College used to select U.S. presidents. Cohen, of course, is unhappy that current Republican President Donald Trump took the presidency by winning the electoral college but not the popular vote. But many people say Cohen’s perspective is a flawed one. The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, for example, cited the 2000 presidential election where George W. Bush prevailed over Al Gore in the electoral college but not the popular vote. “Whoever won, Bush or Gore, it was going to be by a hairsbreadth. Because of the Electoral College, we did not have to recount the whole nation. Instead we could focus on a more manageable task—recounting the state of Florida,” according to the Brookings Institution. “Imagine the problems that would arise, tensions that would exist, and the claims of illegitimacy likely to follow if the entire nation had to be counted, and then…

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Rep. Steve Cohen Introduces Bills to Eliminate Electoral College, Limit Presidential Powers to Issue Pardons

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), who wishes U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) would jump off a bridge, wasted no time trying to monkey with the U.S. Constitution as the Democrats took control of the House Thursday – he introduced a bill to eliminate the Electoral College. Cohen is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. He actually introduced two Constitutional amendments, one to abolish the Electoral College and one to prohibit presidents from pardoning themselves, members of their families, members of their administrations and their campaign staff, according to a press release from his office. Cohen said, “In two presidential elections since 2000, including the most recent one in which Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more votes than her opponent, the winner of the popular vote did not win the election because of the distorting effect of the outdated Electoral College. Americans expect and deserve the winner of the popular vote to win office. More than a century ago, we amended our Constitution to provide for the direct election of U.S. Senators. It is past time to directly elect our President and Vice President.” Cohen has previously tried to impeach President Donald Trump. Also on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Brad…

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Commentary: The Democratic Party’s Reckless Disregard for the Nation’s Institutions

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by Jarrett Stepman   Sometimes progressives do a great job of becoming caricatures of themselves. The progressive worldview is marked by a tendency to embrace utopian dreams, and a general disregard for tried and true traditions and institutions. Ted Kennedy captured this instinct in 1968 when he said, quoting George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” But while laws and norms sometimes need to be changed, there is something to be said for recklessly overturning a system that has been at the heart of the strongest and freest country that’s ever existed. This progressive instinct for change at any cost has gone off the rails. Historically, progressives have sought to bring about a radical social transformation, and in order to achieve it, they have indulged a tendency to try to upend the constitutional system put in place by the Founding Fathers. But more pathetically, in recent days, they have sought to upend the Constitution for short-term political gain. When President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, the left wanted to abolish the Electoral College. When Trump nominated now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme…

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Victor David Hanson Commentary: Who and What Threaten the Constitution?

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by Victor Davis Hanson   Donald Trump on occasion can talk recklessly. He is certainly trying to “fundamentally transform” the United States in exactly the opposite direction from which Barack Obama promised to do the same sort of massive recalibration. According to polls (such as they are), half the country fears Trump. The media despises him. Yet Trump poses no threat to the U.S. Constitution. Those who since 2016 have tried to destroy his candidacy and then his presidency most certainly do. When, and if, we ever lose our freedoms, it will not likely be due to a boisterous Donald Trump, damning “fake news” at popular rallies, or even by being greeted with jarring “lock her up” chants—Trump, whom the popular culture loves to hate and whose every gesture and, indeed, every inch of his body, is now analyzed, critiqued, caricatured, and damned on the national news. In general, free societies more often become unfree with a whimper, not a bang—and usually due to self-righteous pious movements that always claim the higher moral ground, and justify their extreme means by their self-sacrificing struggle for supposedly noble ends of social justice, equality, and fairness. Media darlings, not media ogres, receive a…

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Constitution Series: The Electoral College and the Selection of the President

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

    This is the third of twenty-five weekly articles in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Series. Students in grades 8 through 12 can sign up here to participate in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Bee, which will be held on September 23. The method of selection of a President to head the executive branch for a term of four years is the most notable illustration of the foundational concept of Federalism seen in the body of the text of the Constitution of the United States that emerged from the Constitutional Convention. Federalism, as we explained earlier in this series, “defines the relationship between the national government and each of the state governments that comprise our republic. Both entities–the national government and each state government–remain sovereign, while the powers of governance and responsibilities to the citizenry are balanced between the two.” And it was the Tenth Amendment, ratified in 1791 and part of the original constitutional “compact” or “covenant” between the states and the national government upon which our republic was organized: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. “The executive Power…

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