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Does Elizabeth Warren Really Think She Can Get Rid of the Electoral College Before 2024?

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The Electoral College has been one of Democrats’ favorite punching bags ever since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and one of his 2020 opponents thinks she can be the last president ever elected by it.

In a social media video posted Sunday night, 2020 Democratic hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mass., said that it is her goal to get rid of the Electoral College during her first term in office.

“My goal is to get elected, and then to be the last American president elected by the Electoral College,” Warren tells applauding supporters in the video. “I want the second term to be that I got elected by direct vote,” she continued before correcting to “popular vote.”

“I just think this is how a democracy should work,” the candidate explained. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think the person who gets the most votes should win.”

The Electoral College system is designed so that the president is chosen by groups of electors from every state. A state’s electoral votes are equal to its number of House members plus its two senators. This is how it balances the concerns of more populous states that get more House members with less populous states whose interests are more strongly represented in the Senate, where representation is fixed. “The Electoral College makes it even harder to win the presidency,” Save Our States project director Trent England explained in May. “It requires geographic balance and helps protect Americans who might otherwise have their voices ignored.”

This means that a president can win the popular vote without winning enough votes in enough states to get a majority of electors, which is what happened to failed candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is the chief cause of Democrats’ current desire to end the institution. Prior to that, Al Gore’s 2000 loss to George W. Bush spurred calls to switch to a popular vote system. The movement is also supported by some Republicans such as former RNC Chairman Michael Steele and former Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis.

Warren is far from unique in her desire to get rid of the Electoral College, but her proposed timeline for doing so is really questionable. Eliminating the practice of using electors to pick the president would require an amendment to the Constitution, and those don’t come easily at all.

Perhaps the most obvious hurdle is that the constitutional amendment process — just like the process of electing a president — also has built-in safeguards to ensure that highly populated states can’t run roughshod over the other ones. In essence, to even be proposed, an amendment either needs the support of two-thirds of the Senate or two-thirds of state legislatures, and then it needs three-fourths of the state legislatures’ approval for ratification, regardless of how it’s proposed. This means that, in order to kill the Electoral College via amendment, a sizable number of representatives from states where voters’ interests are better protected by the Electoral College than by the popular vote would have to be convinced to vote against those interests.

And that would be incredibly difficult— if even possible — to pull off, whether the deadline is set at four years or 400.

But constitutional improbability isn’t the end of the popular vote discussion. There’s also a state-by-state movement to undermine the Electoral College system by assigning electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. Recently, New Mexico became the 14th state to join the effort. In June, Oregon also joined the effort, which brought the total elector count to 196.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include the information about the state-by-state movement to assign electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote and more information about the support for a popular vote system.

(For more from the author of “Does Elizabeth Warren Really Think She Can Get Rid of the Electoral College Before 2024?” please click HERE)

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Does This Federal Appellate Case Risk Killing the Electoral College?

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. . .Last week, three years after Trump won the election, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling over Micheal Baca’s “faithless electing.” Baca was a Hillary-hating Democratic elector in Colorado; in 2016, he cast his ballot for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, despite Clinton having won Colorado’s popular vote. Colorado’s Secretary of State then removed Baca as an elector, threw out his vote, and replaced him with a Hillary voter. Baca sued for violation of his civil rights, and that case made its way up to the 10th Circuit.

Now’s a good time to point out that votes of electors are governed by state law; that means, of course, that the specifics on those laws vary from state to state. Some statutes specifically spell out what happens if an elector goes rogue, and others do not. While examining Colorado’s response to Baca’s refusal to fall in line, the 10th Circuit took a gander at the U.S. Constitution — specifically, the Twelfth Amendment. Writing for the 2-1 majority, Appellate Judge Carolyn McHugh ruled that for quite some time now, we’ve been getting things wrong.

According to Judge McHugh, the framers of the Constitution said what they meant and meant what they said; if they used the word “vote” to describe the electors’ function, they really meant “vote,” with all the independent judgment that the word implies. Colorado, the judge ruled, shouldn’t be interfering:

We therefore agree with Mr. Baca that the use of these terms supports a determination that the electors, once appointed, are free to vote as they choose. And if that freedom emanates directly from the Constitution, state law cannot strip it away.

. . .

The next few weeks will be critical for the future of the electoral college. If certiorari is sought in the Colorado case, litigants will have a compelling argument that the case presents an important split among the circuits. And if the case is taken up by the high court, it may find itself landing on friendly soil. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has already gone on record saying that she would support changes to the electoral college system. (Read more from “Does This Federal Appellate Case Risk Killing the Electoral College?” HERE)

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Federal Court Deals Serious Blow to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

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On Tuesday, the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution when he removed an Electoral College delegate who had chosen to vote for John Kasich instead of Hillary Clinton. The secretary of state nullified the vote of the delegate and installed a new delegate who voted in accordance with the popular vote of the state of Colorado.

Michael Baca, a loyal Democratic voter, was elected as a delegate to the Electoral College in November 2016. By voting for Kasich instead of Hillary, Baca was attempting to be a part of a movement by Electoral College delegates across the country to pull away votes from both Trump and Hillary so as to send the election to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Constitution provides that if no candidate receives 50% plus one vote (270 Electoral College votes), then the top three candidates in the Electoral College are to be presented to the House of Representatives and the House is to select the next president.

Baca’s plan was dependent upon other Republican Electoral College delegates also voting for Kasich. Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and, for the plan to succeed, 35 Republican delegates would have also had to cast their votes for Kasich. While Kasich would not have received any votes in the general election, his third-place finish in the Electoral College would have made him eligible for the Republican-controlled House to elect him as president of the United States. (Read more from “Federal Court Deals Serious Blow to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” HERE)

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Opinion: ‘If Democrats and the Left’ Kill Electoral College, ‘We Can Never Win Another Election’

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Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, explained a political push from Democrats and the broader left to circumvent the electoral college and determine presidential elections via the popular vote. He offered his analysis in a Tuesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

The National Popular Vote is a campaign to evade the electoral college via an interstate compact wherein partner states — via their own statewide legislation — agree to cast their electoral votes based on the national popular vote, regardless of how their own state’s citizens voted.

“Few people actually realize that Democrats and the left have done this in 15 states, already,” began Kirk. “This is called the National Popular Vote Compact — an interstate compact — where essentially states have agreed to send their electoral votes to the winner of the popular.” . . .

Kirk warned, “If Democrats and the left pull this off, forget about it. We’ll have a less than five percent chance of ever winning another election again. This is exactly what the Founding Fathers tried to prevent, which is the tyranny of the mob of the inner cities.”

“We are diverse country of different needs and wants and values, and having the sort of balance [and] representation the electoral college demands has made our elections so competitive,” Kirk continued. “This is a healthy thing for our republic.” (Read more from “Opinion: ‘If Democrats and the Left’ Kill Electoral College, ‘We Can Never Win Another Election'” HERE)

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Nevada Passes Bill to Give Electoral Votes to National Popular Vote Winner

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If Nevada’s Democratic governor signs a bill passed by the state senate Tuesday into law, his state will have moved the National Popular Vote movement six votes closer to effectively nullifying the Electoral College as established in the U.S. Constitution.

By a vote of 12-8, the Nevada Senate passed AB 186 on Tuesday, which if signed by Gov. Steve Sisolak, will add Nevada’s six electoral votes to the 189 votes already pledged by 14 other states in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would “guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.” If triggered, the pact would override the majority decision of voters in particular states.

Thus far, 14 states and one district have officially passed the measure, their collective electoral vote total currently at 189. The compact requires a minimum of 270 total pledged electoral votes to go into effect. Should Sisolak sign the bill, the total would edge up to 195 votes.

The 15 jurisdictions, which are predominantly blue, that have signed on thus far are: California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Massachusetts (11), Maryland (10), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (12).

“The bill has passed one house in 9 additional states with 82 electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK, OR), including a 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House and a 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, and been approved unanimously by committee votes in two additional Republican-controlled states with 26 electoral votes (GA, MO),” the National Popular Vote website explains. (Read more from “Nevada Passes Bill to Give Electoral Votes to National Popular Vote Winner” HERE)

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Without the Electoral College, the United States Is No Longer a Republic

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“My view is that every vote matters. And that means get rid of the Electoral College,” said Elizabeth Warren, the most tedious and hopelessly fraudulent of all Democratic candidates, in what could be an exemplary sentence of meaningless tautology. Of course every vote already matters, but that doesn’t make a good catchphrase.

Others quickly followed. “If the system weren’t broken we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are today. We’re going to look, I think, unconvincing if we’re unwilling to change whatever features of the system,” was the so-called argument of Pete Buttigieg.

The simple explanation for this is that Democrats lost the election but won the popular vote last time around, and therefore want to eliminate the obstruction to what they presume is their rightful power. But that is exactly what it is—a simple explanation. This is not a single, specific issue taken up only after Queen Clinton didn’t get the throne. The trend lines are far deeper. . .

The fortunate reality is that the American founders were extremely far-sighted. As someone living in the United Kingdom, it pains me that the Federalist Papers are not compulsorily taught in U.S. high schools anymore, but such as it is, the founders understood that prudence is the key in the survival of any republic. Having read the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, and being well versed on the ongoing chaos of Europe, they understood that any project that guarantees liberal instincts need to be saved from its universalist extreme tendencies that eventually cause destruction.

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” wrote Alexander Hamilton. To stave that off, the only way is to give states power over their decisions, and not go down the path of majoritarian populism. (Read more from “Without the Electoral College, the United States Is No Longer a Republic” HERE)

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Likely Prez Candidate Wants to Win Without Electoral College

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By WND. Although Eric Holder hasn’t officially announced a run for the presidency in 2020, the former attorney general under Barack Obama says it’s time to abolish the Electoral College as the way to elect presidents. . .

In a separate tweet, supporting Colorado’s move to do eliminate the current method of choosing presidents, Holder said: “Change the Electoral College by having a state’s electoral votes go to the national popular vote winner – not the person who won the state. The candidate who gets the most votes – nationally – is elected. Real democracy.”

Holder’s comments came under immediate fire from Nick Searcy, the actor and director of the recent film “Gosnell.” . . .

Holder has said his decision on seeking the Democratic nomination for the White House would come sometime in March. (Read more from “Likely Prez Candidate Wants to Win Without Electoral College” HERE)

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Colorado Governor Will Sign Bill Aimed at Bypassing Electoral College

By The Hill. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) will sign a measure to award his state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, moving a countrywide coalition one step closer to circumventing the Electoral College.

In an interview Sunday, Polis called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” of the nation’s past, one he wants to see relegated to the dustbin of history.

“I’ve long supported electing the president by who gets the most votes,” Polis told The Hill. “It’s a way to move towards direct election of the president.”

Colorado will become the 12th state to join the national popular vote interstate compact. Those 12 states and the District of Columbia, which has also passed a popular-vote bill, account for 181 electoral votes, just under 90 shy of the 270 votes a presidential candidate needs to win the White House.

The compact will not go into effect until the coalition includes states that add up to 270 electoral votes or more. Once it does go into effect, states that are part of the coalition would award their electoral votes en masse to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. (Read more from “Colorado Governor Will Sign Bill Aimed at Bypassing Electoral College” HERE)

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The Electoral College Chooses Trump. But Don’t Expect the Malcontents to Surrender

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In the end, the malcontents failed to stump Donald Trump.

Despite a campaign drive from the Left, threats of violence and death against Republican electors, protests, and cheesy celebrity videos, Donald Trump was officially elected the 45th president of the United States Monday, earning the 270 Electoral College votes he needed, and then some.

The proceedings were not without its drama. In Wisconsin, for example, protesters interrupted the electors as they met in the state capitol.

“We’re all going to go to war and die because of you people!” one protester exclaimed, as Wisconsin’s 10 electors tallied their votes for President-elect Trump.

Cries of “shame” from the Left were not enough, as the electors kept their commitment to the voters in their respective states. In North Carolina, for instance, the electors blew past protesters singing a loud chorus of “God Bless America.”

Some raised concerns that Republican electors could defect and become “faithless” electors by refusing to vote for Donald Trump. Leading the effort was dissenting Republican, Christopher Suprun of Texas, who announced his refusal to vote for Trump in a recent op-ed in The New York Times and declared his intention to cast his ballot for Ohio Governor John Kasich. That effort proved fruitless.

Suprun was joined in dissent by a few Democrats who refused to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton. Per AJC.com, as of 3:49 p.m. ET “four Democratic voters in Washington chose not to vote for Hillary Clinton, becoming ‘faithless’ voters. Clinton took the other 8 votes in the state. Three Democratic electors have tried to be ‘faithless’ by not voting for Clinton. One in Maine, one in Minnesota and one in Colorado. Those votes were changed and registered for Clinton.”

One noteworthy Maine Democratic elector, David Bright, declared in a Facebook post that he would cast his ballot for Hillary Clinton’s primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt. (F, 17%). “I am not a Clinton elector, I am a Democratic elector. I do not represent Democrats all over the country, I represent the Democrats in Maine,” Bright wrote, explaining that if his vote could have helped Clinton win, he would have cast it for his party’s nominee.

“I see no likelihood of 38 Republican electors defecting from their party and casting their ballots for Secretary Clinton,” he explained.

Bright’s not-so-bright vote was invalidated.

The final tally will not be known until later today, with Hawaii’s electors casting their votes at 7 p.m. ET. Regardless of the final numbers, Donald Trump has definitively won. But don’t expect the Left to accept defeat.

As BuzzFeed News’ Chris Geidner declared today, “The battle over Monday’s electoral college vote is the beginning, not the end,” as a “larger campaign to undermine the legitimacy” of this free and fair election in the United States is “likely” to begin. The Democrats are preparing to use means outside of the Electoral College to deny Trump the presidency. From Geidner:

Assuming that effort fails to stop Trump, expect to start hearing about Title 3, Section 15 of the US Code and “objections” to the electoral vote results. An objection can be lodged in writing by two members of Congress: one each from the House and the Senate.

Although rare, this step is not unprecedented. In 2005, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio filed such an objection, specifically to the counting of the votes of Ohio’s electors in the wake of allegations of voting irregularities. The objection was rejected within a few hours, with only 32 members of Congress — all but one from the House — voting against the counting of Ohio’s votes.

Should that fail, too, Democrats may challenge the constitutionality of Trump’s presidency under the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, as Geidner explained:

Enter the Emoluments Clause — the constitutional provision referenced in the Eisen, Painter, and Tribe memo and elsewhere — which bars the president and other federal officials from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

“While holding office, Mr. Trump will receive—by virtue of his continued interest in the Trump Organization and his stake in hundreds of other entities—a steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers and their agents,” the trio of scholars wrote. A handful of Democrats in the Senate already have made it clear they will not be dropping this as an issue.

And should that fail, Democrats may resort to accusing Donald Trump of treason. All this to say … do not expect the Left to roll over for President Trump the same way Republicans repeatedly caved for President Obama. (For more from the author of “The Electoral College Chooses Trump. But Don’t Expect the Malcontents to Surrender” please click HERE)

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Forty Electoral College Members Now Calling for Intelligence Briefing Before They Vote

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Thirty additional members of the Electoral College signed their names to a letter Tuesday demanding an intelligence briefing prior to casting their votes for president Dec. 19.

Forty electors have now signed the letter, all of them Democrats with the exception of one Republican, according to The Hill.

As reported by Western Journalism, a group of 10 electors requested more information Monday about the ongoing investigation regarding what influence the Russians may have had in the presidential election.

In an open letter addressed to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the electors stated they would need additional details before meeting Dec. 19 to formally vote for the country’s next president.

Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is one of the electors leading the effort.

The letter reads, in part: “The Electors require to know from the intelligence community whether there are ongoing investigations into ties between Donald Trump, his campaign or associates, and Russian government interference in the election, the scope of those investigations, how far those investigations may have reached, and who was involved in those investigations.”

“We further require a briefing on all investigative findings, as these matters directly impact the core factors in our deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to serve as President of the United States,” the letter continues.

It concludes, “Additionally, the Electors will separately require from Donald Trump conclusive evidence that he and his staff and advisors did not accept Russian interference, or otherwise collaborate during the campaign, and conclusive disavowal and repudiation of such collaboration and interference going forward.”

The campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton is backing the effort by the electors.

On Fox News Sunday, President-elect Trump was asked about a Washington Post story Friday headlined, “Secret CIA Assessment Says Russia Was Trying To Help Trump Win White House.”

“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it. I don’t know why, and I think it’s just — you know, they talked about all sorts of things. Every week, it’s another excuse,” he replied.

“So, why would the CIA put out this story that the Russians wanted you to win?” host Chris Wallace followed up.

“I’m not sure they put it out. I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country. And, frankly, I think they’re putting it out. It’s ridiculous,” the president-elect responded.

During the race, the Clinton campaign and fellow Democrats blamed the Russians for being behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee that resulted in embarrassing emails being released by WikiLeaks.

Since the election, the Clinton team has supported Green Party Candidate Jill Stein’s recount efforts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, despite the former secretary of state’s having described any attempts to undermine or not accept the election results as “horrifying” during a presidential debate in October.

“That is not the way our Democracy works,” Clinton said. “We have been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcome when we may not have liked them and that is what must be expected. … [Trump] is talking down our democracy, and I, for one, am appalled that someone who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.”

Additionally, the Democrat nominee has pointed to “fake news” and FBI Director James Comey as reasons Trump won the election. (For more from the author of “Forty Electoral College Members Now Calling for Intelligence Briefing Before They Vote” please click HERE)

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HEY: The Electoral College Worked!

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Interesting observation from Al Bundy:

And let’s not even get started on the rampant, systemic vote fraud and the fact that untold millions of illegal aliens and dead citizens are stealing the American franchise. My guess? An accurate ecount of legitimate voters would reveal a Trump landslide. (For more from the author of “HEY: The Electoral College Worked!” please click HERE)

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