There is a petition on Change.org calling for Trump’s electors to violate their pledges and vote for Clinton when the Electoral College convenes on December 19. The originator is a Democratic cheating advocate, liar and Ethics Dunce named Elijah Berg. 3.5 million fellow cheaters, ignoramuses and sore losers have now signed the silly thing, on the way to the goal of 4,500,000, which will obligate the White House to respond to it. The proper response would be a Bronx cheer.
The petition makes me feel even better about not voting with these people, who now, fully corrupt, believe that it is just and right to achieve power by any means necessary, and ethics be damned. These are 3.5 million people I wouldn’t dare play cards with, or trust to mail my water bill.
Let’s focus on some of Elijah’s points, shall we?
On December 19, the Electors of the Electoral College will cast their ballots. If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win. However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose.
Yes, and they can defecate on the floor, too, but their duty is to vote according to how their state’s citizens directed them to vote, and their assumption that the electors would perform that duty.
Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay!
Because whether something is wrong or not depends on the penalty for doing it! Behold! The watermark of an ethics dunce. It is also one of the Clinton family’s operating principles. This is juuuust short of a bribe, incidentally.
We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton. Why?
Because you are unethical and undemocratic cheats who think it is acceptable to defy the result of an election because you don’t like it, right? Well, at least it’s better than rioting in Portland…
Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsive, bullying, lying, admitted history of sexual assault, and utter lack of experience make him a danger to the Republic.
A fine argument for November 7! Unfortunately, it’s November 13. You can’t argue why we shouldn’t elect Trump after he’s been elected. Is Elijah trying to deceive, or is he stupid?
Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President. Hillary won the popular vote. The only reason Trump “won” is because of the Electoral College.
The reason Trump won—and the scare quotes are intentionally dishonest—is that the system isn’t set up the way Elijah wished it was. Too bad. The Constitution says that voters are voting for a slate of electors who are duty bound to vote for the voters’ preferred candidates. More Trump electors prevailed, hence he wins. Clinton didn’t “win” anything. He should be President because the system makes him President.
But the Electoral College can actually give the White House to either candidate. So why not use this most undemocratic of our institutions to ensure a democratic result?
The reason is that this isn’t a democracy, but a republic, as we all learned in school. The Founders rejected a pure democratic system, because the smaller states wouldn’t accept it, and because it might lead to regional domination. Why shouldn’t we undermine the system required for excellent reasons by the nation’s founding document? The question answers itself.
SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE.
YOU SAID THAT. The popular vote doesn’t determine who wins the election, and the system has been in place since 1788. Did it still surprise Elijah? I guarantee that it didn’t surprise Hillary or the Democrats, because they lost in the Electoral College just 16 years ago. They could have gotten an amendment passed (actually, they couldn’t, because the small states still like the Electoral College), or could have refused to participate in the election as a protest. However, they decided to participate, and thus accepted the system and rules as they existed.
There is no reason Trump should be President.
You mean, other than the fact that he was duly elected under the same system that every other President was elected under, and that the Democratic Party and their candidate agreed to abide by? The same system and process that they, incredibly and laughably, condemned Donald Trump for suggesting that he might not abide by? That’s a decisive reason.
Let us be clear about what this is. This is signature significance. It is the most corrupt and unethical segment of the Democratic Party claiming that it is acceptable to change the rules after the election, because they lost, and don’t have the integrity, honesty or respect for our institutions to accept the results like good citizens and adults are ethically obligated to do. They are urging people who have pledged to act a certain way and who had millions of citizens vote trusting that their word was their bond to betray that trust, because it means just a “small fine.” and because the ends justify the means.
To this segment of the Left, the ends always justifies the means. This is why one DNC chair felt that rigging the nomination for Hillary Clinton was appropriate, and why her successor abused her relationship with the news media to help Clinton cheat in debates. This is why Clinton decided to break her own department’s rules to make it easier for her to hide her various political schemes.
Over 3,5 million people have been so corrupted by the culture of the current Democratic Party that they publicly outed themselves as willing to disenfranchise the Americans who voted Donald Trump to victory, many of whom knew he was unfit to serve, but feared exactly this kind of totalitarian mentality among Hillary Clinton’s supporters. We don’t like the results of the election, so we will just overturn it.
There is your Democratic Party after eight years of Barack Obama, America. It believes that the uninformed, arrogant certitude of 4.5 million fools should over-rule over 60 million votes.
This also speaks poorly for the intelligence and education of those Democrats, of course, since what they are calling for is impossible. Most of all, however, it demonstrates how devoid of ethics the progressive movement has become, and at this point, they don’t recognize or regret its. This is The Saint’s Excuse at extinction levels.
I recommend downloading and keeping that list of petition signers. They have publicly declared themselves in favor of cheating and betrayal. Be warned.
Ethics Alarms 
These are not progressives, they are the neo-liberals who cheated Bernie Sanders at the Convention. When some of HRC’s delegates did not show up after it was revealed that the DNC rigged the primary, Bernie WON the pledged delegate count TWICE in a breakfast roll call vote. The DNC’s response was to roll the superdelegates into the first floor vote instead of having them vote separately the next day in order to disguise that fact. They were more interested in proceeding with their coronation and presenting a phony front of unity than in actually representing the will of the people.
I remember well, but there are a fair amount of Sanders folks in the mobs.
There was MASSIVE election fraud committed in the primary. If there was any chance to invalidate the entire election back to the primary, I’d be there, but since there is no chance of getting Bernie, I’m not interested. According to election experts, there was also voter suppression using a Crosscheck program, but I just couldn’t care less at this point. Not going to fight to get Hillary, who would have started WWIII with Russia over the Syrian no-fly zone.
Here are some facts:
There are roughly 235 million voting aged citizens in United States (2012 stats).
There were 121,331,359 voters that cast votes for the President, that’s only 51% of possible voters that bothered to vote for either candidate. That means that 113,668,641 voting aged citizens didn’t like either candidate enough to cast their vote for them.
Clinton got 60,981,118 (50.26%) of votes cast, Trump got 60,350,241 (49.74%) of votes cast.
Between Clinton and Trump there was a difference of 630,877 votes, this is 0.52% of total votes cast for President and 0.27% of possible votes from voting aged citizens.
Clinton got 25.95% of possible votes from voting aged citizens, Trump got 25.68%.
There is absolutely no mandate from We the People to put Clinton or Trump in office – none; there is only election rules/laws that guide the process.
These individuals that sign this petition are fully consumed by partisan “ends justify the means” including openly talking about breaking the law to achieve their goal, including bribery, and there will likely be blatant Electoral College voter intimidation to come before December 19th. These idiots will stop at nothing. These idiots want to illegally manipulate the election process and are basing their justification on 0.27% of possible voters cast their vote for Clinton instead of Trump.
“That means that 113,668,641 voting aged citizens didn’t like either candidate enough to cast their vote for them.”
Or were too low energy to show up. People that don’t vote, shouldn’t. If they don’t understand how important it is to vote, then they’re stupid, and I’d prefer them not muddying election results with their retardation.
People that don’t vote, shouldn’t.
Bingo. And thank God they don’t.
But remember Obama after the 2014 mid-terms talking about what the people who didn’t vote wanted him to do? Hilarious.
“Clinton got 60,981,118 (50.26%) of votes cast, Trump got 60,350,241 (49.74%) of votes cast.”
This math is in error. You’ve omitted all other votes that WERE cast for other candidates than the two leaders. Clinton did NOT get more than 50% of cast votes. Irrelevant to the fact that she did get more than Trump, but relevant nonetheless when analyzing just how much American voters were dissatisfied with ALL available candidates.
texagg04,
You’re absolutely correct; I erned a great big DUH for ignoring that segment. Thanks for the correction.
Jack said, “I recommend downloading and keeping that list of petition signers.”
I recommend you delete that sentence, it inspires retaliation! “You do an excellent job pointing out what’s wrong with this petition… the blog is more effective without it”.
Guess who WILL be downloading and keeping that list of petition signers? Hint… not me.
The download link does not seem to work.
I couldn’t even find a downlaod link. Does it appear only if you sign the petition? (You don’t have to answer that, Zoltar;)
fattymoon said, “I couldn’t even find a download link. Does it appear only if you sign the petition?”
You have to scroll down there will be links that appear on the top of the page. They’ll look like CSS tabs on the top of the page saying…
Story Details Updates Supporters
fattymoon said, “(You don’t have to answer that, Zoltar;)”
NO, I did not sign the petition!
fattymoon,
I’m one of the people here that sent Jack the link hoping he would write about it.
Oh, cool. And thanks for the info about where to find the download link.
You’re welcome.
The links just vanished.
Oh-oh. Is that my fault???
Who knows.
Actions have consequences. I’m an ethicist, and signing this petition is signature significance. It’s is ethical to make assessment of character and trustworthiness based on public Facebook posts, or any other kind of post. I am quite serious: this is an endorsement of totalitarian methods and cheating. And, apparently, signatories don’t care who knows it. They are conspiring to take fellow Americans franchise away. I said be warned, not “shoot them.”
Jack,
I knew why you wrote the sentence, I just disagree with posting it.
I know you know, and you should know that I deeply, deeply resent this kind of disrespect for the process. If someone signed petition saying we should torture animals, I’d keep that one too. I want to know if you are someone who wants to void the Constitution and take over the government, so I can have nothing to do with you. I see nothing wrong with that. The conduct is shun-worthy.
Keep your eye on this alt-right Twitter platform. https://twitter.com/ThaRightStuff
Website – http://therightstuff.biz/
What do you think their response will be when they learn of this petition? (I emailed the link to the petition itself, not to Ethics Alarms.)
A self-outing jackass called, ironically, Learn Logic just sent a pair of idiotic comments, either of which were ban-worthy.: It wrties…
1. You cowards forgot the link to the petition itself so folks here can sign it:
Answer: The link is in the very first sentence, dolt. Beginning you first post with an insult is a guaranteed ding.
2 Ha-ha! The electoral college can vote any way they want! That petition is now over 4 million. You might want to check your rampant use of fallacy:
Now I’m guessing this dummy didn’t read the post. I covered that. But “Hah-Ha” would get a ding anyway.. This is the level of logic and discourse I expect from signatories, so that’s a plus.
And so it begins.
Who’s up for a short nap? I am! Back later.
Update: This rude jerk responds–he’s banned–you’ll never see him here–
“Oh there you go, I missed the link. It shows how weak your position is if you need to hammer on someone for something like that. (I was busy reading – figured the link would be in the image.) This doth not a dolt make.”
Actually, that’s exactly what it makes: Calling the host of a website a “coward” without bothering to read the post, then not apologizing for the wrongful insult, but insisting that well earned consequences are indications of anything other than the fact that this forum has standards and enforces the, Scream your indignation to the skies, buddy—no one’s going to read it.
And good luck with your moronic petition.
The thing that makes this especially stupid is that the people signing these things invariably came from districts that voted Hillary anyway. How much clout do Californians think their signatures will garner with EC voters from Texas?
This is like when BLM riots to protest…. some nebulous… somethingorother by burning down their own neighbourhood… Or all those anti-Trump riots in Blue states…. You’re literally preaching to the choir… Or shanking them…. whatever…. While ignoring the people who disagreed with you to begin with.
What I’m saying is: If the goal was to change minds, this is ineffective and stupid. If the goal was to throw yourself down the stairs of self pity in righteous convulsions of mixed grief and angst… Congratulations! Great Victory!
Also, you all might have noticed I’m dropping bombs again. My self imposed grace period in which people could embarrass themselves regarding this without comment has officially lapsed. I’ve seen more people “literally shaking” over this election result than the last time I attended mass in my Pentecostal grandmother’s basement… I can’t hold back anymore.
If the Electoral College end run were *seriously* pushed, the real challenge would come from states that voted Red for President but are controlled by Blue state legislatures. No, California petitioners won’t sway Texas.
So … basically he just thinks you decide every now and then to turn a section of text blue for purely aesthetic reasons?
What do they think is going to happen if they accomplish this?
* The Republicans will argue that the Democrats stole the election and we have a continuation of the undermining of the electoral process that began in 2000.
* The Republican majority in Congress will fight against much of what President Clinton wants, with those who didn’t support Trump likely uniting with those who did on principle.
* The United States will be further divided by partisan interests with a handful of pundits, journalists and experienced politicians realizing that they’ve contributed to the imploding of our nation.
* “The Ends Justifies the Means” becomes part of both parties’ political arsenal -because it works.
They’re not thinking at all. That’s the problem. Elijah’s argument was pathetic…and it gets 4 million signers?
I can’t believe that just over 1% of the country are complete dips.
Oh, wait. I’d say roughly 35% of any populace are dips. The dips on the Left are just the sort who sign pointless online petitions that have no hope of ever getting more than a (deservedly) condescending pat on the head.
Well, there are the 11,000 that wrote in Harambe…
Anytime somebody brings up Harambe (in earnest, not like you did), I take it as signature significance that they are either unintelligent, unwilling to think for themselves, or both. I’ve identified a species of young Leftist I identify as the “Social Media Warrior”, and “Justice for Harambe” and variations thereof appears to be their signature.
There’s a lot of hate for the electoral college… And I think that stems from a misunderstanding of what it is. The EC wasn’t meant to reinforce the idea of ‘one man, one vote’, otherwise the founders would have found some way of ensuing that. Institutions like the EC were designed to give a certain amount of Geographic fairness to the system, so no one could perpetually ignore certain votes. The way the EC was designed gave a base two EC votes to every state, and then doled out more deferring to populations. This is supposed to protect citizens in lower population dense areas.
Does it work? Depends how you look at it. If a politician had X time, and they could reach ten times the voters in place Y than in place Z, where you think that candidate is going to spend it’s time? Well, what if the voters in place Z’s votes counted for more because their ratio per EC vote was tighter? This SHOULD pull people to these low-population areas. But it doesn’t. Whether that’s because more juice is assumed from higher population centres, or if these states vote so consistently neither candidate has much reason to court them, we still call a great swathe of America “Fly Over.” The great revenge of these little states is that they DO count for more, and swaying them is one of several ways to gain an EC victory with less than the majority of the popular vote.
The most recent “reason” I’ve seen for getting rid of the EC is ‘that it was created to help slave owners’. I’ve seen several references to the ‘slave owning founding fathers’ . They want the EC done away with so Clinton can win, no matter how they go about it. Tying it to slavery, they’re probably trying to get BLM on board.
It’s the city mice against the country mice. Remember the big “re-apportionment” fights in state legislatures? The big city population centers, dominated by Democrats, want to dominate the entire country’s politics and enlighten us all. The EC stands in their way. Therefore, I’m all for it. Heck, I’d like to see Senators sent off to Washington by their state legislators as they were originally. Why have popular votes for both congressmen and senators? Doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.
I haven’t been able to find any information about this Elijah Berg other than that he’s from North Carolina, but I’m actually curious. Based on the earnest naïveté of the content and the competent but self-conscious writing style, I can’t help picturing him as a really smart high school student. If I’m right, there may be hope for him yet. The fact that the Electoral College can override the popular vote is indeed the sort of thing that sounds both absurd and monstrously unfair when you first hear it, and from that perspective I can imagine this petition would come across as a clever attempt to game a screwed-up system, rather than an unrealistic and mendacious attempt to subvert a process carefully designed to keep great voices from entirely drowning out small ones. *If* he’s actually a high school student, I admire his pluck. If he’s an adult, he’s a dunce in more ways than one. And in any case, 3.5 million people who really ought to know better have cosigned their names to a document demonstrating the intellectual and emotional maturity of a fifteen-year-old’s Honors Civics project. I wish I could say this surprised me.
“really smart high school student”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxymoron
But seriously… I doubt that these 3.5 million people exist. I doubt that the real names on the list are all American, and I doubt that the remainder of that is even 18. (Which, as an aside, demonstrated the usefulness of voter IDs!)
This hits me as a sad masturbatory exercise that everyone knows will fail, but kinda feels good anyway.
I’m quite certain you’re right about the signers. I first saw this petition on the Facebook page of a friend of mine who lives in Australia. I don’t know for certain whether she did sign it – I suppose it’s possible she simply wanted to make it available to all her American friends – but I assume she probably did. If you’re the kind of person who thinks it’s acceptable to interfere with the results of an election run fairly according to the law of the land, or to encourage hundreds of individuals in a position of public trust to violate their oath, why would a little scruple like “this isn’t even my business in the first place” suddenly come into play?
Ahah! Finally a way for “citizens of the world” to finally get their duly owed right to elect America’s president.
I’m wondering if any of those petitioners have actually considered the ramifications of what would happen should their petition be pushed forward. I imagine it would be nothing less than all out war. Losing is one thing, having the system completely taken away from you is another.
I hope he gets the 4.5 million signatures. That will force President Obama to respond. So far he has been mute on calling out the behavior of the intransigent morons who only accept elecyion results when they win
I kinda hope it gets to 4.5 million, just to see what he says.
Knowing the Obama White House, the response will likely be patient condescension. Remember when his press secretary had to respond to a petition to make a Death Star?
I know 3.5 million Democrats who think that “The Karate Kid” would have been a much better movie if, after Daniel won, the judges decided to retroactively change the rules to allow illegal kicks to the knee and awarded the trophy to Johnny, because the Cobra Kai fighters were clearly more experienced and totally should have won.
The EC is a beautiful concept.
Aside from the minor detail that if we didn’t have something like the Electoral College we very likely would never have had our Constitution — and quite likely the United States would not have existed past maybe the Napoleonic era…….
Did everyone enjoy what happened in Florida in 2000? Do we want to see a repeat of that little episode but played out over all 50 states and in thousands of counties and precincts nationwide?
The closest elections are where the Electoral College is most important.
Hillary won with 600,000 votes out of 121,000,000.
.5%
POINT 5.
Nerp. No system so divided that it can’t decide one particular person is immensely superior to another that they can’t garner more that a 5% or even a 10% lead can’t be left to just popularity.
So thank goodness the Founders decimated a system that ensured heavily populated places that may share an extremely homogenous culture don’t get to automatically rule by default of population over areas that aren’t heavily populated.
Decimated?
Sheesh. Steve Jobs still laughs at us.
That should be “designed”
According to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #68, the electors have a legitimate and constitutional duty to vote for the candidate they personally think best and not necessarily for the candidate that won the popular vote in their state. Consequently, in my opinion, state laws requiring electors to cast their electoral votes in accordance with their state’s popular vote are, based on an “original intent” understanding of the Constitution, unconstitutional.
Here are three paragraphs near the beginning of Federalist #68, whose purpose is to explain the electoral college, with my comments in brackets [ ].
“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. [Notice it is the people’s “sense” but the electors’ “choice”.] This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture. [The “right” referred to here is choosing the president and belongs to the electors.]
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. [Again, the choice of selecting the president belongs to the electors who Publius/Hamilton thinks will be acting under circumstances that favor deliberation. I think he expects electors to be individuals who the public trusts to make such an important decision.]
“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. [Notice the “choice” here again belongs to the electors.]. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.”
I’m back. This complicated system requires both public understanding of how the system works (i.e., civics) and a willingness to accept its legitimacy. Neither that understanding nor legitimacy exists today, so a decision by the electors to gave the presidency to another candidate would likely result in public outrage that would harm the legitimacy of other constitutional institutions.
That electors vote almost uniformly as expected by their state’s popular vote, rather than deliberate and choose the best candidate as intended by the founders, does not in any way detract from the real and ongoing advantage created by the electoral college of forcing the president to win broad and diverse support from across the country and to push the president towards the center, in contrast to many current popular legislative elections that push candidates to the extreme.
Keep up the good work Jack. I have learned so much from your posts and the commenters.
That’s really neat. Thanks TS. My, what a genteel, enlightened (as in The Enlightenment} world the founders inhabited.
Well, that was Alexander, Troy. It’s an idealistic concept, but a fatal one. Typical of Al, who really didn’t trust the people and was an aristocrat at heart. If people couldn’t be sure that the elctors would vote for the candidates they voted for, we really would get Jefferson’s periodic revolutions.
Ideas like this helped get Hamilton shot. Great musical, though.
No, Jack, you can’t dismiss Hamilton’s statement about the EC that easily. Hamilton’s statement in Federalist #6 is consistent with the Constitutional Convention’s understanding of the role of the electors in the EC.
Logically, why even have the electors if the electors are only supposed to copy the will of the populous? Why not do what the media currently does and add up the electoral votes to determine the winner–no electors required?
Also, why would Hamilton take this anti-democracy position in the Federalist Papers if it is just his opinion? Your argument is the reverse of those who usually dismiss the Federalist Papers as worthless, because, they claim, the Papers were mere propaganda to get the Constitution ratified in New York. But if that were entirely true, then Hamilton’s position would be the wrong position to take.
True the electors are pledged, and in some states required by law to vote according to that state’s popular vote, but the pledges and laws are under a system that constitutionally gives the electors a choice. Which rule takes precedence–the pledge required by the political party that put them forward as electors or the Constitution (as was clearly the framers’ intent)? I would argue that just as contracts to illegal things are not binding so pledges and laws that are contrary to the Constitution are non-binding.
I am not agreeing with the petitioners in this case. I see two problems with their argument: (1) why should a petition (which expresses the will of the public) have greater relevance and authority than an election (which expresses the will of the public better than a petition)? (2) If this petition is accepted, it would turn the electors’ into something contrary to the founders’ intention, it would make them responsive to the people (at least a vocal and aggressive component of the people) and undermine their ability to deliberate and choose themselves. That this does not happen now is not reason to disqualify it — rather it might be reason to restore the institution (though I’m not making that argument here just saying that isn’t sufficient justification to dismiss it).
Finally, Hamilton’s duel is not necessarily signature significance. A duel takes two, in this case Aaron Burr, who Edmund Randolph described as, “A man of splendid abilities but utterly corrupt. Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he both shineth and stinketh.”
Again, if they are pledged, they have no ethical choice but to obey the pledge. and if they were intended to be public will vetoes, don’t you think they would have some qualifications to meet? You really think Hamilton was writing about barbers, retirees, nurses and real estate agents who juts wanted to be told who to vote for? Ham was smarter than THAT: here’s my system…after the nation votes, a bunch of random schmoes picked from a hat get to cancel out the election. Now be honest: what do you know about Trump electors? How were they chosen? What are they qualified to do or decide. You have no idea, and you are arguing that because Hamilton argued in the abstract for electors to be able to go rogue, we shold accept that concept for a group Hamilton would probably think weren’t qualified to vote at all.
The founders delegated the decision of how to select electors to the state legislatures (Art. I, Section 1, paragraph 2). The founders’ hope was the state legislatures would find a way to get good electors. Allowing the state legislatures to determine how electors are selected does not give state legislatures the power to bind how electors actually vote.
The founders hoped the electors would be experienced (but out of office) statesmen or politicians. The idea “it takes one to know one” was part of their thinking, e.g., it takes a politician to distinguish between a demagogue and a persuasive statesman.
Current electors are generally selected from a party’s faithful often as a reward for their money and/or service to the party. Whether they are capable or not of fulfilling that responsibility is irrelevant to whether they have an independent vote. It may not be wise, it is the constitutional procedure.
I’m not arguing that it was only Hamilton who argued for this. This was the understanding of those at the Constitutional Convention.
Claiming “faithful electors” are unethical puts the emphasis on an unconstitutional (and, hence, unethical) pledge. The pledge is a party effort to circumvent the Constitution and gain party advantage. A Constitutional grant of power to the electors takes precedence over unconstitutional pledges by the states to vote a certain way. Just as unconstitutional laws adopted by Congress and approved by the president are not enforced by the courts, so I don’t think these pledges are constitutional and legally enforceable.
There is no such thing as an unethical pledge in this area. The idiotic measures being passed in states requiring electors to vote for the popular vote winner are also not unconstitutional. But that intent to let electors veto the public is not in the Constitution. Who cares what Hamilton wrote about an abstract concept that has been ignored? The Constitution also doesn’t say that a VP serves out a dead President’s term, but that’s how we do it now, because the document wasn’t specific. for 230 yearsm Hamilton’s concept has been ignored. It’s dead. It should be..
…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming here at Comedy Central.
Jack, it is not just the right, but the duty, of electoral college voters to vote as they see fit. Another check and balance.
They should be aware though that they would need excellent, unimpeachable reasons to go against the popular vote. Such as the preferred candidate committing mass murder with a meataxe after the election in broad daylight .
Trump comes nowhere near this standard. Should faithless voters not discharge their obligations, then the election would indeed have been stolen. There would be anarchy, civil war.
So unless the alternative to civil war is worse, vote as the electorate demands. As for the petition signers? They have the right to make their case, based on events since Nov 8. EC delegates have the right to carefully evaluate it, or to discard it unread, as they see fit.
TS’s post is most definitely worth reading. I think that my opinion expressed above reifies in a contemporary context whats in Federalist #68.
That’s an unworkable system, Zoe. They aren’t legislators, where the conscience and best judgment of the elected needs to prevail, because its a representative government. The system you describe is a sham and a fraud on the public (which Hamilton didn’t trust).
Stop talking about rights; no one’s denying their rights to act like assholes, try to hijack the election, puff themselves up like our betters and bully the system. The fact is that they lost, and while they have the right to misrepresent reality, they don’t have the right to be respected for it. What they are doing is cheating, and dishnestly presenting it as just. It’s not just, and what Hamilton was doing is expressing his distrust of democracy. These electors are just random people—they aren’t Hamilton’s imagined wise veto-wielders against the dolts who voted. They are pledged. That means they can’t ethically betray the trust of the people.
There’s nothing unethical about beseeching the electors to utlize the electoral college for one of the very purposes for which it was conceived: to protect us from ourselves in rare circumstances and prevent someone patently unfit from becoming president.
The Electoral College Giveth, And The Electoral College Can Taketh Away
https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19
Why are you linking to the petition when it’s linked on the post? You are doing it because you either didn’t read the post, or because you are just a flack for the Democrats trying to overturn the results. You can’t say that Trump is “patently” unfit because a majority of voters in enough states to give him a winning total of electoral votes said otherwise. No matter how you spin it, 4 million people are saying that their partisan judgement should over-ride 65 million voters. Why? Because they want to cheat, that’s why, like the Democrats have cheated throughout the 2016 cycle. Sure, they can beseech all they want, and what they are beseeching is transparently an effort to get people to break their pledges to their parties, candidate and voters. I have a right to beseech you spouse to run off with me, but it’s still an unethical plea to make.
I’ve read your blog with interest the past few months, but I think you’ve got it wrong here.
1) It is true the winner of the popular vote is not the “true” winner of the office of president. The reason for this is because the rules of the system enshrined in the Constitution were agreed to (in some fashion) by all parties participating in the process. Occasionally, the rules of this system produce unusual results, such as a president who lost the popular vote.
2) If we accept the logic that all parties have agreed to the rules of the system enshrined in the Constitution, then we must also accept that one of those “rules” is that state popular votes are *not* the final say in the election of a president. The Constitution doesn’t allot a pre-determined number of votes from each state into a final tally. Instead, the Constitution provides that a pre-determined number of electors from each state shall convene on the same day, after the election, and that they will cast ballots for the president.
You seem to be saying that the unusual result of a president being elected by electors who do not vote for the winner of their state’s popular vote is unethical. That’s incorrect. If anyone involved in this process has problem with this outcome, they could have previously advocated to reform this centuries-old system and worked to change it. That didn’t happen.
I submit that you are, essentially, making a fallacious appeal to tradition. Yes, we expect our electors to do what they’ve typically always done, but since the process was created to involve electors choosing the president, the act of exercising that choice in an unexpected way cannot, in and of itself, be unethical.
The ethics are pretty simple, actually. The electors are pledged to a specific candidate. They are not pledged to vote for anyone they choose. If they weren’t pledged…Congress members don’t pledge to follow polls…your point would make sense. But they are. It’s unethical to make pledges and break them. It’s unethical to fool voters into thinking their electors are committed in they aren’t.
Your argument is intellectually dishonest. Hamilton assumed electors who were of special expertise, education and wisdom. That’s not the system. You have no idea who these people are, yet you are arguing that they were intended by the Founders to be able to veto the will of the people. The electors, as they have evolved, are there to do one thing. Vote the way the voters told them to. That’s what they promise to do. It’s unethical to break promises.
It is unethical to break promises, except when the promise itself was unethical. If I pledge to lie to your children about their parentage after your death, for example, I may later realize good reasons to break that pledge or good reasons to keep it. (I tried to come up with an example that wasn’t too cut-and-dried; we both know it would be unethical to keep a pledge to murder your granmother.)
I submit that the electors were intended by the founders to cast a ballot, and that the nature of “casting a ballot” is subverted if everyone doing it is 100% beholden to a pledge.
An elector who votes their conscience would be doing something unexpected, and that would surprise and anger a lot of people. But it is not unethical to do something unexpected. The people who voted for these electors knew, or should have known, that the chance was there.
To be clear, I personally think the US should reform the electoral college so something like this doesn’t happen. But I reject the appeal to tradition as fallacious, and I reject the notion that all pledges and promises are always inviolate, because a pledge, or the act of making that pledge, can itself be unethical.
Pretty funny. “I pledge to vote the way the public trusts me to vote” is an unethical pledge? Be serious.
When you phrase it like that, you are begging the question. Here’s a clarification of what I’m saying: you said in your first response to me that it’s unethical to break promises–as if that is a bedrock principle of ethics. I counter-argued that it is not unethical to break a promise when the promise itself is unethical.
I am not contending that the text of the electors’ pledge is unethical; I am contending that the act of requiring a pledge from a person who is Constitutionally endowed to cast a ballot is unethical. If–for example– states required their citizens to pledge to vote a certain way before they cast their ballots in a presidential election, that would be unethical, and I’m sure you’d agree.
If states required juries to pledge to vote “guilty” before they could be empaneled on a jury, that would be unethical…and I’m sure you’d agree.
So–while I understand you still disagree with me–I think it matters on what grounds we disagree. You said “It’s unethical to break promises,” but that’s not always true. You may be right and I may be wrong about whether faithless electors are acting unethically, but if that’s the case, then it must be so for some other reason that we haven’t yet uncovered.
I’d contend that the electors have at least the same “expertise, education, and wisdom” as the jurors to whom we trust our criminal justice system.
If a juror were required by the state to pledge in advance how they choose to vote, I suspect you would agree that is an unethical pledge. It is not unethical to violate an unethical pledge.
(It’s not a perfect analogy, but I don’t think the argument that electors aren’t special or elite holds water. The Constitution allows the states to select electors, and if the state chooses an elector who goes on to exercise independent judgment, that is a feature of the system we’re all operating in, not a bug.
And jurors are not supposed to engage in jury nullification, nor can the be urged to engage in it.
But you are wrong. There is voir dire to qualify jurors and ensure they are trustworthy.
I don’t think I’m wrong, though. The process of voir dire exists because it was implemented by the states, because the Constitution gives the states the right and the freedom to determine how juries are selected. Similarly, the Constitution empowers the states to determine how their electors will be selected. (It is also accurate to say that voir dire does not, in fact, provide a system to ensure that jurors have special expertise, education, and wisdom. The voir dire process is at least as likely to eliminate any juror professing special expertise about the subject matter of the case as it is to include them. But this fact is not germane to my argument.)
What matters is that the states had the power to select their electors, and the electors have the power to cast a ballot for the person they choose to be president.
I agree with you that the pledge made by electors is an ethical consideration that electors should consider when choosing who to vote for on December 19. I just don’t think you are correct that it’s the *only* consideration that they can consider.
(This doesn’t mean I think that they should vote to elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. I think that there would be many potential negative outcomes to such an action.) I’m not playing devil’s advocate–I believe what I’m saying here–but I’m open-minded to the idea that you might be right. I just don’t think that, if you are right, you’ve nailed *why* you’re right.
Fair enough!
The word “ethics,” that’s good. There is also the question for each human hopefully to ask; do I care about the quality of life for all people, including those who might be charged or even found guilty of crimes? This website seems to be one where I fear it can be justified (I hope I am mistaken) to kill children. And others.
What in the world are you trying to say? Most ridiculous comment here in many moons. I probably should have let it out of moderation, but it’s early, and I haven’t had my coffee. Be assured, if your next comment is this dumb, you’re gone.
Ooooh I want to give it a try! Probably something along the lines of “If even one trans teen commits suicide as a result of Trump being elected, you had better advocate his immediate deposal or you are justifying the murder of children! Won’t someone think of the children?”
That looks like one of those random internet gibberish generators that somehow has managed to seem on topic…
It’s really close to being projectile blogging.
Jack, you should have a section on your blog pointing to examples of Authentic Frontier Gibberish. And this comment would take center stage.
Now, I pride myself on my ability to interpret the Left’s AFG, but even this post has me stumped. I think we can start with the quotes around the word ‘ethics’, which is the clearest part – meant to signify disbelief in or skepticism towards ethics as a philosophy, which I will come back to.
“There is also the question for each human hopefully to ask;”
Terrible grammar aside (was this written using Google Translate?), this is pure, uncut moral relativism. When we combine it with the aforementioned scare quotes, I think that it’s safe to surmise that Melvin believes that no authority figure can say what is right or wrong.
“Do I care about the quality of life for all people, including those who might be charged or even found guilty of crimes?”
This seems like a random tangent, particularly the second part of the clause, but this is actually the setting up of a strawman. What Melvin seems to be saying is that by not wanting a coup against the duly-elected President-Elect Trump (yeeeech), we do not care about the people he believes Trump will harm. I’m not sure where the Felons’ Rights shit at the end comes from, though.
“This website seems to be one where I fear it can be justified (I hope I am mistaken) to kill children. And others.”
Here Melvin is attacking the strawman erected in the previous statement, claiming that by supporting Trump, our strawman wants to kill minorities and the LGBT, appearing to be under the mistaken impression that Trump is an actual Nazi, and not just supported by the Nazis.
See, I took it as a rebuke of abortion.
It would be if he were a right-wing nutjob. But he’s a left-wing nutjob accusing Jack of being a Trump supporter.
To be clear, the faithless elector construct pushed by Hamilton in the Federalist Papers actually DOES make perfect sense. But as Hamilton put it, the Electors would be meant to protect the Republic from the temporary passions of a hyped up population. Given that this election has one of the lower voting turnouts and neither lead candidate garnered more than 50% of the vote, it would be hard to make an argument that the voter’s passions were out of control…
And if anything, given the subsequent behavior by the Left, if there are out of control passions, those would be found solidly on the side that is thrown a giant nation-wide toddler level temper tantrum.