| Posted: 30 July 2020 at 9:16am | IP Logged | 10
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Kevin wrote:When Americans cast ballots for presidential candidates, their votes actually go toward selecting members of the Electoral College, whom each State appoints based on the popular returns. The States have devised mechanisms to ensure that the electors they appoint vote for the presidential candidate their citizens have preferred. With two partial exceptions, every State appoints a slate of electors selected by the political party whose candidate has won the State’s popular vote. Most States also compel electors to pledge to support the nominee of that party. Relevant here, 15 States back up their pledge laws with some kind of sanction. Almost all of these States immediately remove a socalled “faithless elector” from his position, substituting an alternate whose vote the State reports instead. A few States impose a monetary fine on any elector who flouts his pledge.
----------------------------- Yes, this doesn't alter my thinking on what I wrote previously. This was a ruling all about States enforcing their penalties on faithless electors. A state if it has a penalty (such as removing a faithless elector because they didn't vote as they should) is confirmed as having the power to enforce those penalties.
As I said: my understanding is that 16 states currently have zero penalties for an elector that doesn't follow the vote of the people. And the way that I read it, the supreme court ruling had nothing to do with these states until they decide to have penalties.
If a state has no penalty, surely it follows a faithless elector faces no penalty when casting the vote as they see fit? Anything else would be a penalty...
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