Showing posts with label Electoral College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Electoral College. Show all posts

Monday, December 19, 2016

Electoral College: What to Know About Today"s Vote


Rallies, protests planned at Texas Capitol during Electoral College vote

Electoral College members are meeting today across the country to place their votes for president of the United States.

It is a constitutionally mandated ritual every four years, and while it is normally just a procedural process that doesn"t get much attention, this year Americans will watch with interest.

The electoral college"s usually ceremonial role has come under focus in the aftermath of the 2016 election because of a number of factors including that Democrat Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by a significant margin, and the CIA"s and FBI"s finding that Russia used hacking to try to influence the election.

In light of these circumstances, pundits and members of the public are considering what role the 538 electors can and should play in deciding the final outcome of the election.

Public demonstrations opposed to Trump are expected in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., today to encourage electors to vote in line with the national popular vote, protest organizers said. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is spearheading several of the events, said its goal is to talk to electors as they enter the meetings in their states to help them feel supported should they decide to cast their ballots in line with the popular vote.

While it is possible that a few electors who are pledged to Trump could go faithless and vote for Clinton or another candidate, most experts expect that Trump will get the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

Here are some quick insights into the Electoral College vote:

What is happening today? Electors will gather in their respective state capitols to engage in a voting process that is open to the press. The earliest results will likely come in after 10 a.m. Eastern time and the latest around 7 p.m. Eastern time.

Who are the electors? The Electoral College has 538 members, a number drawn from the sum of the number of U.S. senators and House members plus three electors for Washington, D.C. All states except Maine and Nebraska are winner take all, meaning that the candidate who wins a state"s popular vote gets all that state"s electors. Maine and Nebraska do it differently: Two electors vote for whoever won the state popular vote, and one elector from each congressional district votes for whoever won that district.

In most states, electors are chosen among political party activists. "Generally, the parties select members known for their loyalty and service to the party, such as party leaders, state and local elected officials and party activists," reads the National Conference of State Legislatures website.

Faithless electors? ABC News has identified only one elector pledged to Trump Chris Suprun from Texas who has said he won"t vote for the Republican candidate. Suprun in an interview on ABC News" "Nightline" this week referred to the Russian hacking, saying he was "concerned when a foreign government intrudes on our elections. They"re not doing it with our best interest in mind. I don"t think we deserve a classified briefing, but I do think we should get as many facts as information we can without compromising sources or methods that the intelligence community can provide."

What about Russia? As of Sunday, 80 electors, all but one of whom are pledged to Clinton, have signed a letter urging Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to give them classified briefings on Russia"s hacking and any of its other cyberactivities related to U.S. elections. Christine Pelosi, who spearheaded the action and is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi"s daughter, said electors needed to be fully informed on the issue before they cast their votes.

What about Hamilton? Founding Father Alexander Hamilton warned in Federalist Paper No. 68 that there may be "the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils." The Electoral College, he implied, could serve as a fail-safe to prevent a candidate who may represent the interests of a foreign power from taking office. Some political activists and Hollywood celebrities opposed to Trump have said Hamilton"s words provide a basis for electors to vote against Trump on Monday.

Could faithless electors put Clinton in office? Trump has 306 electors pledged to him and needs at least 270 to win. So at least 37 electors pledged to Trump would have to be faithless and vote for Clinton or another candidate for him to lose. Thirty states have laws that require electors to vote as pledged. However, no elector in any state has ever been penalized or replaced, and none of those state laws have been fully vetted by the courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The last time an elector crossed party lines was in 1972, when an elector nominated by the Republican Party cast his ballot for the Libertarian ticket, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Faithless electors" votes would probably still be counted, according to Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News. He said there have been 157 faithless electors in our history, and Congress has counted every one of those votes, except in the case of three electors who voted for a dead man, Horace Greeley, in 1872. But Ned Foley of the Moritz College of Law said Congress could still stop potential faithless electors, telling ABC News, "Even if there were 37 faithless electors, ultimately what matters is what Congress does on Jan. 6," when it counts electors" votes.

Congress certifies the final election results.

What if no one gets to 270? In the highly unlikely event that neither Clinton nor Trump gets 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives chooses the next president, with each state delegation getting one vote, and the Senate picks the next vice president, with each senator casting a ballot.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/electoral-college-mondays-vote/story?id%3D44265972

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How Germany"s electoral college was set up to prevent another Hitler


Will electors stage an electoral college coup?

When the u.s. electoral college meets on monday, many of its members will have experienced weeks of rising pressure toselect someone other than Donald Trump.The role of the electors has been the focus of controversies for years, with some arguing that they are unnecessary andthat the difference between the public vote and the composition of the electoral college is too big.

Other countries have hadsimilar discussions. The most prominent example might be Germany, where an electoral college was introduced following World War II. The declared aim behind that decision: to prevent the rise of another Adolf Hitler.

Almost 70 percent of Germans would prefer to elect the president directly, according to surveys. The system"s critics argue that the indirect election of the German president is undemocratic, but supporters point to the procedure"sorigins.

German post-war politicians were horrified by the possibility of another fascist populist gaining widespread support among the public. So they decided to make the election of the German president a decision of a Federal Assembly, which only meets for that purpose. It consists of members of parliament and other electors who are nominated by their respective parties.

In total, more than 1,200 members are in Germany"s electoral college.About half of them are nominated by their parties in a particular region of the country, based on the number of residents there.

The comparison between the U.S. and Germany is imperfect, of course: The German president"s powers were largely curtailed following World War II. Today, German presidents mainly fulfill ceremonial tasks, although they can refuse to sign certain bills or are responsible for nominating the chancellor. Compared to U.S. presidents, their role is insignificant.

Before World War II, during the Weimar Republic, the German president was allowed to issue emergency bills and to mostly ignore parliament. In 1933, PresidentPaul von Hindenburg used that leeway and made Adolf Hitler the chancellor of the republic a decision that ultimately empowered Hitler to proceed with thedissolution of democratic institutions as well as government checks and balances.

It was Germany"s first post-war president, liberal politicianTheodor Heuss, who was the strongest advocate for indirect election and curbing presidential powers.

But as in the U.S., pressure to adapt the electoral college has been on the rise in Germany. The country"srecently emerged far-right Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) party is demanding to reverse many of thechanges that were designed to make German democracy more robust. Among the AfD"s demands are to abolish the electoral college and to allow Germans to vote for their president directly.

For Germany"s mainstream political parties, the current system is more predictable because it allows them to build coalitions and to agree on a president who represents the majority of people.

But as in the U.S., this system has not come withoutsurprises. One Republican elector in the U.S. has said he will not select Trump; Germany"s Federal Assembly has witnessed similar moments. German electors are also not forced to vote for the preferred candidate of the party that nominated them.

In 2004, Bavaria"s Christian Social Union asked PrincessGloria von Thurn undTaxis to elect Horst Khler to become president. Von Thurn und Taxis, a prominent German business executive, decided to vote for another candidate.

Khler became president regardless. Since then, however, the Christian Social Union has refrained frommaking VIPs members of the Federal Assembly and has instead relied on moreloyal supporters.

Read more:

What Germans really think about those Hitler-Trump comparisons

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNGXK9NXsjkxf1FIboWcwWMxtC8nNw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&ei=1vFXWPCJNpeO3AGp05zgCA&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/19/how-germanys-electoral-college-was-set-up-to-prevent-another-hitler/

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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?


Electoral College Sues To Take Down Trump

Akhil Reed Amar and Charles Fried.

Updated December 13, 2016, 3:20 AM

Hillary Clintons growing lead over Donald J. Trump is now over 1 million votes, making this the second time a president has been elected without a popular majority since 2000. That year, Akhil Reed Amar wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times that the electoral college should be abolished, and Charles Fried disagreed. Here they are again.

This is part of the Issues for Trump and America series.

Read the discussion.

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Topics: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court, anti-Semitism, campaign, elections, gays, race, racism, reader comments

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/13/the-most-talked-about-room-for-debates-of-2016/should-the-electoral-college-be-abolished

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