Activist Files Federal Suit to Declare Electoral College Unconstitutional Under Slavery Ending Amend

[Iamaartist]

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/activist-files-federal-suit-declare-electoral-college-unconstitutional-under-slavery

Wish it was done before.....This election is so corrupt by Trump and GOP in our voting rights.......also

[KittyWampus]

1. What an interesting idea!

[Iamaartist]

2. I haven't heard about this until now when I read the article

The media hasn't said anything on this......

[EL34x4]

23. Why would the media say anything on this?

Countless thousands of other baseless lawsuits get filed each day that go without media comment.

[onenote]

3. Saying that he has zero chance of prevailing is overstating his chances

Absurd lawsuit. If he thinks the DC Circuit will rule in his favor, he's insane.

[Wounded Bear]

4. The Constitution doesn't even mention the popular vote....

in its description of how the President is elected.

Won't work.

[brush]

5. Does it mention the Electoral College?

[Wounded Bear]

6. Yes, and it defines how it works...

Without an amendment, we can't get rid of it.

[brush]

9. 12th Amendment? Not in the original Constitution?

[Wounded Bear]

12. 12th Amendment only addresses how VP is elected vis-a-vis the Pres...

It sets up the method where we elect them as a team. It does not change the methods of selecting electors or how they vote.

[brush]

16. My question was really is the EC in the original Constitution or was it added later...

to keep southern states in the Union?

[tammywammy]

19. The Constitution is readily available for free online

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992

[brush]

20. I think we all know that. I was just asking a simple question to those who responded...

to my post.

[tammywammy]

21. The answer is in Article 2. n/t

[brush]

22. A simple yes or no would've done it.

[onenote]

7. Yes. It also sets January 20 as the date the new president takes office

So the idea a court could override that is ridiculous. To say nothing of the countless other ways that this lawsuit is ridiculous.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. Nitpicking: yeah, but not right away.

The last inauguration that did not occur in January was Roosevelt's first inauguration, on March 4, 1933. He almost didn't make that one, thanks to Giuseppe Zangara. They didn't waste any time with him.

It was also Frances Perkins's first day on the job as Secretary of Labor.

[sarisataka]

11. The Electoral College is

the process of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html

The process is described in the Constitution.

Article II
Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Section 2. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector
Section 3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
Section 4. The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Note this has been modified by the 12th Amendment but the Electors are still the means of selecting a President.

[Garrett78]

8. The electoral college is a vestige of slavery but this isn't going to work.

Tyranny of the minority is here to stay.

[sarisataka]

10. How does one

declare the Constitution to be unconstitutional?

[Yo_Mama]

14. Wishful thinking? Fairy dust? Good drugs? What a waste of money and time!!! n/t

[dionysus]

15. Not fairy dust, more like angel dust. It's a (crack) pipe dream... nt

[brush]

17. Maybe not. It could hightlight the absurdity of the EC to people that don't know...

and thus lead to movement on fixing it or getting rid of it.

Most people just accept it and don't know that it was put in place to help slave states, which of course makes it unfair, archaic and unnecessary.

I say go forward with the suit and highlight the hell out of the reason for the suit.

Unfair things can be change if enough people get behind changing them.

[Yo_Mama]

24. Repeating a lie does not make it true.

At the time the Constitution was passed, most states were slave states. MA freed all states in 1783 by state SC decision, the first state to do so, although VT had tried (it was unenforced) earlier. The process had only begun in PA, NH, CT & RI by 1787 (new Constitution). It was not until the 1800s that most northern states succeeded in actually freeing all their native slave population.

And in any case, the electoral college prefers small population states over large population states.

The electoral college does not allocate votes strictly by population, but rather by Congressional representation (number of a state's Representatives in the House plus 2 Senators). This is not historically due to slave/non-slave state issues, but to the smaller states knowing that they would essentially be the garbage dump for the others without this arrangement.

The slave state thing came in when the slave states did not allow slaves to vote, but demanded that the representatives be allocated including the slave population. The compromise was the 3/5ths deal, which of course vanished into the trash heap of history as a result of the Civil War.

Your beef is not the electoral college, but the representation of the Senate, which provides smaller states more weight in the election than you would think fair. What citizens of RI or WI might think about the matter might surprise you.

Although the original government of the States (Confederation) did not work well, the barrier to creating a stronger Federal union was the concern of the small states that they would essentially have no say in government of that federal state.

One look at the First Congress of the Unites States (1789) shows that the electoral college in no way preferred states that would turn out to be slave states - instead it reduced their influence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_United_States_Congress#House_of_Representatives_3

The Carolinas and Virginia had 20 seats in the House, out of 64. It was in the SENATE that the smaller northern states had power, because RI had two seats, just like VA.

The US Constitution establishes a split representational scheme varying from degrees of represention by population, from most to least:
House
Presidency
Senate.

It explicitly establishes a president selected by states rather than popular vote. At the time, this was more about power-sharing than slavery. It still is.

[brush]

25. What's the lie you say is being repeated?

[Yo_Mama]

26. Electoral college/presidential voting in Constitution was to protect slave states.

Actually, as set up, it diminished their influence.

[brush]

27. No matter. The EC is still absurd and archaic. It needs to be adjusted or ditched...

otherwise we'll keep getting presidents who didn't get the most votes.

[Yo_Mama]

28. It will take a constitutional amendment, and I don't see why WI, RI, ND etc

would go for it.

The same conditions that made this the compromise in the 1700s still exist.

[brush]

29. Won't happen overnight, just as the end of slavery and the ban on women voting...

jim crow and child labor and fixing other social ills didn't happen overnight.

You fight and protest and strategize and raise funds to continued the fight over the long haul.

Broad movement thinking, not single-day protest thinking has to prevail.

It'll happen eventually because the EC, as I said before, is archaic, absurd and unjust.

[onenote]

31. a lawsuit that is summarily dismissed isn't going to help get an amendment passed.

Just as there was no lawsuit that pushed forward women's suffrage.

[brush]

32. I didn't say that. It'll take a concerted movement to make it happen . . .

but a lawsuit might spark awareness of the issue and help the movement to go forward.

[Yo_Mama]

13. The Crazy, it is strong in that one. n/t

[Retrograde]

18. It would be better to increase the size of Congress

It's been fixed at 435 members since the early 1900s - when the country had maybe a third of today's population and IIRC 4 fewer states. Increase it so that California,New York, Texas and the other populous states have the same per capita representation as Wyoming: that will make the electoral vote more reflective of the popular vote.

[jmg257]

33. Maybe if they tap their heels 3 times...