Will The Supreme Court Get Involved In a Electoral College Issue From 2016?

The year 2016 was a doozy of an election on the national level. Donald Trump surprised a lot of people ( including myself) when he won the Presidency and made Hillary a two-time loser in POTUS runs. The reason why Trump was able to pull off this feat was because of two simple words.

Electoral College.

I have written here at Red State before about this…READ  Yuck: Colorado Decides To Bypass The Electoral College With National Popular Vote and the reason why it needs to be preserved.

Now a new challenge is possibly facing a showdown in the United States Supreme Court and it could radically alter how we have done elections in this country for over 240 years.

According to…CNN…

Three presidential electors in Washington state who voted for Colin Powell in 2016 rather than Hillary Clinton and were fined under state law, are asking the US Supreme Court to take up their appeal and decide whether a state can bind an elector to vote for the state’s popular vote winner.

“The original text of the Constitution,” their lawyers argued in court papers filed Monday afternoon, “secures to electors the freedom to vote as they choose.”

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal of the so-called “faithless electors,” it could thrust the justices into yet another high-passion political fight in the heat of the 2020 presidential election. It comes as some predict that the volatile political atmosphere and disputes over redistricting could further emphasize the role of the Electoral College in the upcoming election.

The states have always run federal elections. However, with this new wrinkle, the states would pick people who then do not have to abide by the state’s very own rules if the faithless electors are ruled constitutional on a federal level.

The 10th amendment to the United States Consitution declares that…

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.

Even though people have argued that the 12th amendment was passed to deal with some complications in the process of federal elections it does not specifically say how states were to deal with the rules for selecting electors. That, at least in my mind would mean that the states get to pick the process.

However, can you imagine a scenario where 10 or 12 states have a different processes to pick and allow electors to do what they want? That would be an epic mess.

I am fascinated about this whole process and will keep an eye on what SCOTUS decides to do. I don’t think they have much choice to take it up and we will see soon enough.

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