JUST IN: FEDERAL COURT RULES ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEMBERS NOT BOUND BY POPULAR VOTE
Cristina Laila
The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled Tuesday that the presidential electors can cast their vote for the presidential candidate of their own choice and are not bound by the popular vote in their states.
A panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 saying that Colorado was wrong in 2016 to force an elector to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College.
Free Beacon reported:
State law in Colorado mandates that presidential electors cast their Electoral College vote for the candidate receiving the most votes statewide, which in that instance was Hillary Clinton.
In 2016, however, elector Micheal Baca tried to cast his vote for Ohio’s then-governor, Republican John Kasich, as part of a short-lived movement to circumvent Trump’s election in a kind of compromise.
Supporters of the idea hoped enough electors would defect to Kasich to deny Trump the presidency — arguing Trump was too unstable or dangerous — but would still have given Republicans control of the executive branch rather than handing that power to Democrats.
When Baca cast his vote for Kasich, then-secreatary of state Wayne Williams (R.) removed and replaced Baca with an elector who voted for Clinton.
“Secretary Williams impermissibly interfered with Mr.
Baca’s exercise of his right to vote as a presidential elector,” the court ruling read. “Specifically, Secretary Williams acted unconstitutionally by removing Mr. Baca and nullifying his vote for failing to comply with the vote binding provision.”
“Article II and the Twelfth Amendment provide presidential electors the right to cast a vote for President and Vice President with discretion,” the ruling added.
The federal court’s decision gives the “faithless elector’s” a legal argument to go rogue and vote the way they want rather than cast their votes in line with the voters in their states.
The ruling also brings us to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which is the left’s way of trying to work around the Electoral College mandated by the Constitution.
Colorado recently joined over a dozen other states when they entered the NPV, however in order for the NPV to go into effect, the amount of electoral votes has to surpass 270, the same amount of EC votes it takes to elect the US president.
So far only 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed up, totaling 196 EC votes.
Tuesday’s federal ruling could actually destroy the National Popular Vote Pact because it mandates that electors ignore the popular vote in their states and make their own decisions.