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Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Not to Worry

 Uncle Ken, you seem to have the primary confused with the general election.  While it is true that the Constitution doesn't tell the states how to choose their electors, if a state wants to change the way they choose their electors, they have to do it before the election, not after.  The only state that I know of that does it differently is Nebraska.  They apportion their five electors in proportion to how the vote turns out.  For example, if Trump won by a narrow margin in Nebraska, he would get three electors while Biden would get two.  To the best of my knowledge, all the other states give all their electoral votes to whoever wins the state popular vote.

  That said, their is no federal law that requires an elector to vote for the candidate to which he is pledged, although I read somewhere that some states have passed such a law and the Supreme Court has ruled that they can do that.  Faithless electors are extremely rare, but not unheard of.  I believe the most recent case involved a guy in Utah who switched sides and voted for Reagan back in the '80s.  

Just the other day I read about a movement afoot that would effectively nullify the electoral college.  Colorado passed a ballot proposal that would give all of their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote.  A number of other states have already passed this, but it won't go into effect unless enough states pass it to guarantee 270 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, which hasn't happened yet.  



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