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zataomm  1yr ago (text post)   6805 thread views

Colorado Supreme Court Thread

Link to the decision

I don't know to what extent there are established precedents for when a topic is worthy of a mega-thread, but this decision seems like a big deal to me with a lot to discuss, so I'm putting this thread here as a place for discussion. If nobody agrees then I guess they just won't comment.

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What’s supposed to happen if an ineligible candidate wins a state?

Let’s say a write-in candidate wins due to a generational gap. Turns out the last Silents were the only thing holding back fascism, and now Hitler has the plurality in Colorado. What gives?

  • Votes for an ineligible candidate aren’t counted.
  • Votes for an ineligible candidate are counted, but electors are bound to choose the highest eligible count.
  • As above, but electors aren’t bound at all, and can pick Hitler anyway.
  • Electors are bound to pick the highest count, regardless of eligibility, but the US Senate won’t sign and certify votes for ineligible candidates.
  • As above, but the Senate certifies the results; ineligibility only matters after tallying the final result.
  • As above, but the seat gets filled by the VP instead of the Presidential runner-up, since this is “the case of the death or other constitutional disability” from the 12th amendment.

This is a genuine question. Article II doesn’t say anything about faithless or stupid electors, and it certainly doesn’t say anything about the state population picking a dead man. If there’s something in the 14th or in the 12th, I missed it.

It depends a lot on the specific state and situation.

Colorado, specifically is one of the few states with a tested faithless elector statute that not only prohibits an elector from submitting a vote against the state's popular vote count, but swaps them for someone else who will. In Colorado, this selection is made by the other electors: the question of what happens if every elector defies state law is so-far untested. Not all states have such statutes, or their statutes may only fine (rather than replace) faithless electors.

Electors are transmitted to the Senate by the executive branch of their states: for Colorado, they literally meet in the Governor's office, and the Governor sends the notice out. There's some (afaik) untested space for fuckery here.

The US Senate then receives and certifies the electoral vote. Historically, Senators could object to these individual, but as of 2022 it requires 20% of the Senate, and the Vice President has no serious authority... by statute. There's some !!fun!! questions about how much the statute actually binds Senators, given matters like nuclear option, but it's a schilling point and if they had 50% of the Senate they'd probably just use the rules as-is.

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