I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Since the 2016 election, some Democrats have raged against the Electoral College as an anti-democratic institution that does not reflect the will of the people. Some Republicans have defended the institution … Continue reading
Category Archives: electoral college
Ned Foley has posted this very important draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Congress could face a disputed presidential election triggered, not necessarily by foreign interference, but by the ballots counted after Election Night that cause the initial apparent … Continue reading
Lyle Denniston for Constitution Daily: When the Supreme Court reopens a new session in October, awaiting the Justices in the pile of work that built up over their summer recess will be a major constitutional case over how America elects … Continue reading
NYT: Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who founded the group that brought the case, Equal Citizens, said it was the first time a federal appeals court had ruled on whether electors could be bound in how they vote. Many states, … Continue reading
Always read Derek on the Electoral College: In the latest of a string of faithless elector litigation arising from the 2016 presidential election, the 10th Circuit issued a decision finding that Colorado wrongly removed an elector pledged to support Clinton … Continue reading
BAN: On August 20, the Tenth Circuit ruled 2-1 that presidential electors have the constitutional right to vote for anyone who meets the constitutional qualifications to be president. Baca v Griswold, 18-1173. This is the first time any court has … Continue reading
Looking forward to participating in this conference coming at a key time: The Electoral CollegeOpen Questions, Paths ForwardHomeAboutRegisterAgendaPanel ChairsKeynote SpeakersConference OverviewFew institutions are as important to shaping the future of the United States as the electoral college. Please join Professor … Continue reading
David Wasserman does some Electoral College math. … Continue reading
The History Channel has an explainer. … Continue reading
Sean Parnell, over at The Hill, notes some concerns about the National Popular Vote compact. Some of these concerns have to do with the fact that different states have different rules for administering elections. I’ve got mixed emotions about NPV … Continue reading
Advocates say they’ve got the signatures. An extra note of significance: If certified for the ballot, it would be the first time since The Great Depression that Colorado voters would decide whether to repeal or reaffirm a law approved by … Continue reading
Oregon Live reports. … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
KOLO: Governor Steve Sisolak has decided to veto a bill that would have put Nevada on the list of states casting their electoral college votes for the winner of the national popular vote for President, regardless of the vote totals … Continue reading
FiveThirtyEight reports. … Continue reading
Jonathan Bernstein: You know what both U.S. political parties aren’t paying enough attention to? Electors. That is, the actual people who will cast electoral votes in the next election. They’ll be chosen, using state-by-state procedures, sometime next year, and they’ll be expected … Continue reading
Derek Muller: In the latest of a string of litigation surrounding faithless electors, the Washington State Supreme Court has issued its decision in In re Guerra, here. Four electors cast votes for candidates other than Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine; … Continue reading
Ned Foley in Politico Magazine, suggesting that Electoral College reformers ” focus on a select group of battleground states and get them to adopt ranked-choice voting—or, if they prefer, a conventional runoff—in presidential elections”: The key is to focus reform … Continue reading
TPM: I was talking to one midwestern Democrat about this. And this person told me they figured it was pretty likely Pennsylvania and Michigan would return to the Democratic fold in 2020. They were much less certain about Wisconsin. Indeed, … Continue reading
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Organizers have aborted their attempt to change Ohio’s constitution to award the state’s presidential electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who wins Ohio.J. Corey Colombo, a Columbus elections attorney working for … Continue reading
Norman Williams has this post at the Harvard Law Review blog. … Continue reading
Jack Torry reports. … Continue reading
Cincinnati Enquirer: Columbus attorney Don McTigue, who submitted the proposed amendment, referred The Enquirer to Reed Hundt, CEO of Making Every Vote Count, a nonprofit that advocates electing the president through a national popular vote. Hundt, reached by phone Monday, … Continue reading
John Koza, the force behind the National Popular Vote initiative writes: Ohio news organizations have been trying to identify the mysterious backers of an initiative petition proposing an amendment to the Ohio Constitution requiring the Ohio legislature to guarantee the … Continue reading
This brings states representing 189 electoral college votes into the agreement. … Continue reading
I’ve seen lots of arguments for and against the Electoral College. Some are stronger than others. But Stephen Sach’s idea that there could be such widespread fraud if we moved to a popular vote (rather than keeping fraud in a … Continue reading
Nate Cohn for NYT’s The Upshot. … Continue reading
NPR reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday endorsed ending the electoral college, arguing for a system where “every vote matters.”Many Democrats, including Warren, have disparaged the electoral college following the presidential election results in 2000 and 2016, when Al Gore … Continue reading
SF Chronicle: A national effort to bypass the Electoral College and pick the president by popular vote — which may or may not be constitutional — is picking up new support and moving closer to success.Governors in Colorado, New Mexico … Continue reading
538 has the latest on the National Popular Vote compact, focused on the Colorado governor’s likely signature on a new bill. … Continue reading
Jamelle Bouie for NYT Opinion. … Continue reading
Oh my: Speaking to the hosts of the WVOM morning show this week, former Governor Paul LePage lambasted a bill being considered by Maine’s legislature to join with other states to essentially bypass the Electoral College and ensure that the President is … Continue reading
WaPo: Colorado is set to become the latest member of a group of states banding together to bypass the electoral college system.The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact — which already has 11 states and the District of Columbia on board — would … Continue reading
[Bumping to the top because this original post was inadvertently incomplete.] The following is the first of three guest posts by University of Memphis law professor Steve Mulroy, sounding some themes from his fascinating new book, Rethinking US Election Law: … Continue reading
KUOW reports. (via How Appealing.) … Continue reading
Ned Foley in Politico Magazine (based on his forthcoming Oxford UP book, Presidential Elections and Majority Rule): Americans have heard for years that the Electoral College is broken—just look at the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016, when the winner earned … Continue reading
Jerry Goldfeder in the NYLJ. … Continue reading
AP: A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the winner-take-all system Massachusetts uses to assign its Electoral College presidential votes, rejecting the argument that it violates the principle of “one person, one vote.” The case is one of … Continue reading
Patrick Valencia has written this article for the Harvard Journal on Legislation. … Continue reading
Roll Call: A group is suing two red states and two blue states to change the Electoral College system. Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig and David Boies, who served as former Vice President Al Gore’s lawyer in Bush v. … Continue reading
Ed Zelinsky blogs. … Continue reading
William Josephson has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: How to elect the President was the second most debated issue at the 1787 constitutional convention. The last moment Electoral College compromise between congressional election of the President … Continue reading
AP: Connecticut’s General Assembly has voted to join a group of states that want to pool their Electoral College votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. The Senate on Saturday voted 21-14 to enter the National Popular … Continue reading
Politico: President Donald Trump on Thursday voiced support for doing away with the Electoral College for presidential elections in favor of a popular vote because the latter would be “much easier to win.” The president’s support for a popular-vote presidential … Continue reading
Derek Muller: David Boies is leading an effort to challenge the winner-take-all method that most states use when awarding presidential electors. There are different ways states might award electors (which I used to project alternative electoral outcomes in 2016). Brenden Cline in 2017 nicely summarized the … Continue reading
Release: A coalition of law firms led by David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, and The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) today announced the filing of four landmark lawsuits challenging the winner-take-all method states use to allocate … Continue reading
Ned Foley for USA Today: This point is different from the one about Hillary Clinton winning almost 3 million more votes nationally than Trump. That much-mentioned truth is irrelevant to how the Electoral College is supposed to work. It would matter if there were any … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
Tara Ross is out with a new book-length defense of the electoral college, with the subhead: “How the Founders Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule.” … Continue reading