How ministerial voting the key element of an Oligarchy of this American Plutonomy

The legal question whether Colorado's (and 28 other state's) Presidential Electors were either ministerial or an actual voting position was and remains the key question in initial court proceedings the week prior to the Electoral College in Denver. Here is some background detailing the legal outline. The salient issue lies in the inherent conflict between the act of voting,  defined as: 

"a usually formal expression of opinion or will in response to a proposed decision; especially : one given as an indication of approval or disapproval of a proposal, motion, or candidate for office and the act of performing a government duty."

Conceivably within any realm of common sense logic that the expression of either an approval or disapproval of a [presidential] candidate, as the act of performing the duty of an Elector.  If one reads the Constitution:

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 

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. 

Twelfth Amendment 

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, ...

That's it, Electors vote by ballot, so what is defined as the  very act of vote by ballot. Merriam Webster defines the term  vote as: 

Definition of vote

1a : a usually formal expression of opinion or will in response to a proposed decision; especially : one given as an indication of approval or disapproval of a proposal, motion, or candidate for office 

So the Constitution allows the legislature to appoint Electors in a manner they choose and Colorado allows each Party appoint their electors through this law: Colorado Revised Statutes Title 1. Elections § 1-4-302. Party nominations to be made by convention

1) Any convention of delegates of a political party or any committee authorized by resolution of the convention may nominate presidential electors.

(2) All nominations for vacancies for presidential electors made by the convention or a committee authorized by the convention shall be certified by affidavit of the presiding officer and secretary of the convention or committee.

It is not spelled out as how does Colorado then appoint Electors in the winner-take-all votes without a law stipulating it and that is inferred as part of the succeeding law: Colorado Revised Statutes Title 1. Elections § 1-4-304. Presidential electors -

(5) Each presidential elector shall vote for the presidential candidate and, by separate ballot, vice-presidential candidate who received the highest number of votes at the preceding general election in this state.

And therein lies the crux; the state of Colorado has pre-determined the Electoral College vote by prescribing the act of whom to vote as an official act of the position, therefore deeming it a ministerial duty. The definition of ministerial from Merrian Webster; 

2a : being or having the characteristics of an act or duty prescribed by law as part of the duties of an administrative office 

b : relating to or being an act done after ascertaining the existence of a specified state of facts in obedience to a legal order without exercise of personal judgment or discretion. 

Therein lies the point, the State of Colorado in a legal order without exercise of personal judgment or discretion to vote, therefore stripping the formal expression of opinion or will to indicate an approval or disapproval for a presidential candidate. Can states write laws where not provided jurisdiction from the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause in the Constitution and subsequent long string of Supreme Court decisions outline this hierarchy of law: Article VI Clause 2: 

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing [sic] in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. 

So is there any Supreme Court precedence regarding Presidential Electors that challenge state laws binding votes as ministerial?  In 1952, the US Supreme Court Case No. 649 Ray vs Blair the court ruled that Elector’s indeed possess the right and duty of expressing free will where the Supreme Court upheld a pledge requirement for candidates running for the position of elector.  

A state’s or a political party’s exclusion of candidates from a party primary because they will not pledge to support the party’s nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election, pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party. It is an exercise of the state’s right to appoint electors in such manner, subject to possible constitutional limitations as it may choose...

However it held that the ruling applied only to an elector’s name being placed on a ballot for a primary election. Justice Reed wrote just a few paragraphs later that even if such pledges could not be constitutionally enforced regarding the elector’s actual Electoral College vote after the general election, though it did not imply eliciting the pledge as a condition for a party selecting an elector was also unconstitutional.

No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the best men qualified to the Nation’s highest offices.* (Citing Federalist Paper #68.) Certainly under that plan no state law can control the elector in the performance of his Federal duty, say more than it could a United States Senator chosen by and represents its State.

This appears to be reaffirmed when our case was appealing for an Emergency Restraining Order in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Politico,com:

In a footnote appended to an order issued late Friday in a Colorado lawsuit, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals suggested state officials may be constitutionally barred from removing electors once they've started voting. In their order, the judges said any attempt by Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams to remove electors "after voting has begun" would be "unlikely in light of the text of the Twelfth Amendment." 

That interpretation could significantly undercut state laws across the country that demand immediate removal of electors who vote against the popular vote winner in their state. It's a silver lining for a handful of Democratic electors urging their colleagues to cast votes against Donald Trump when the Electoral College meets on Monday.

You got that? The 10th Circuit alluded the Friday before the Electoral College that once voting began it was actual voting not a ministerial function, but the Republican Secretary of State challenged that and still called the state law and removed Micheal Baca, Colorado's faithless elector, so now the court battles will ensue. Polly Baca and I will pursue the constitutionality of Colorado Revised Statute 1-4-304 which binds the Electors. And Micheal Baca will pursue both the state law and charge the Secretary of State with criminal violation to U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 29 › § 594 Intimidation of voters

"Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, or of causing such other person to vote for, or not to vote for, any candidate for the office of President, Vice President,..."

It all comes back to the act of voting, the "formal expression of opinion or will". Voter suppression in any form be it restricting one's access to the ballots and casting a vote, having their vote actually counted then recorded, insuring that an accurate count is made and certified but also allowing the act without intimidation, threats or coercion---NATURALLY---because otherwise it is not a vote. 

Voter suppression is this era's civil rights issue as it unveils the obvious; we live in a plutonomy where oligarchies exist. Without voter suppression, overt or covert, coerced or intimidated, restricted, minimized or ministerial, voter suppression is the only way a plutonomy can keep its oligarchies in place when their is an appearance of a democracy as a facade for the consent of the governed. Our cause is merely a piece of the puzzle, reaffirming the selected Elector's  "formal expression of opinion or will" in the act of the Electoral College. But the underlying strategy is to lay the groundwork for the court and the nation's representative government to seek the national popular vote as the only method to elect the President of the United States. 

Until you personally experience the power of the state, its heavy handed intimidation using lawyers or high level state government authorities mandating that you must be obedient by legal order without exercising personal judgment or discretion, you don't understand how precious your vote is as it was taken away or forced upon you. It opens your eyes immediately as to the charade of inconsequential choices presented to you by way of ceremonial positions from what once was serious deliberative bodies of representative bodies, be they government or political party's. Once stripped or their deliberative powers to decide of positions such as delegates, committee assignments, representatives become part of a veiled larger voter suppression strategy and therefore confirming an oligarchy exists. 

This has become clear to me and what is now even clearer is for the ordinary citizenry to reaffirm their individual sovereignty and self determination----meaning your freedom and liberty,  reconstituting the old ways of representative government all the way down through  the entire governing process. It may be inconvenient, it may be tiresome, possibly long winded, obstructive, but it is freedom, messy and human. 

Colorado tried. In July at the Republican National Convention Kendal Unruh a delegate from Colorado tried to as reported by the Colorado Independent:

Free The Delegates was an effort by some Colorado GOP delegates to unbind other delegates from states Colorado won so they wouldn’t have to vote for him if they didn’t want to. Colorado’s own delegates were not bound to anyone, (though they supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz) because of state party rules. The parliamentary battle came down to a vote on the Republican National Committee’s rules committee and failed, but it garnered national media coverage and fit into a broader narrative of the #NeverTrump movement.

Colorado then started the Elector's revolt that became known as the Hamilton Electors and finally Congressman Polis looked at a rebellion in the Congress at the certification of the election. 

Reps. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Bobby Scott of Virginia, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Jamie Raskin of Maryland are among a group of Democrats eyeing challenges. Members have the right to lodge those protests when Congress officially counts the electoral votes on Friday. But for the protests to have any effect on the proceedings, they’ll need to secure the backing of at least one senator, and it’s unclear whether any Senate Democrats are weighing a similar challenge.

Except for the procedural threat in Congress at each stage, the RNC or Electoral College, the threats were killed because of the ministerial nature of the roles had evolved into. Certainly Senators, all one hundred of them decided not to participate and sign an objection to certifications, essentially a vote of conscious. But again these procedures were meant to be deliberative not ceremonial. 

It is the same for the ballot box. 

“America's Peculiar Electoral System---The Electoral College”; How one is selected as Presidential Elector

When people ask me; “How does one become a Presidential Elector?” 

My reply is; "I was elected, how else?" 

Then be they family, friends, workmates, or even political reporters, they give me that quizzical look, where upon they often reply, in staccato like fashion: "When, where, how?" It is as they really believe they are informed or involved and their voice and their vote actually matters, though never recalling never seeing my name on a ballot .


My daughter describes this manner as  that "Bob patronizing all-knowing sarcasm", that I often parlay, where in fact I have come to realize that none of us really have a voice or vote in the present system, when then I continue: 

Colorado Democratic Convention 2016, picture from podium

"It was at the 2016 Colorado Democratic State Convention, in a side session, in what is called the Congressional District 5 Convention & Assembly, on April 15th. There, in a convention room where over 300 Democratic party activists from El Paso County and four other surrounding mountain counties voted me in---overwhelmingly. Practically no one in the room, except for those few, nerdy, politico-players like myself, knew what the position was, but the room was aware that I wanted it, and I was a good party guy." 

Those questions of how I became an Elector, and the subsequent reactions, pinpoint precisely what is deeply wrong with America's electoral system. What it reveals to me is that our democracy has morphed into its present sickly state that more reflects an oligarch operated by a plutonomy where electoral processes are ministerial acts within old ceremonial procedures once designed as deliberative owing to a conscious act to elicit the genuine consent of the governed. So let me tell you that this Electoral College chapter is part of a larger continuing story, what I am now describing “America's Peculiar Electoral System---The Electoral College, and the entire election system.

You might think that the most powerful democracy in the world, the United States of America, would possess a system where the electorate, especially well educated and knowledgeable citizens, would know how Presidential Electors are chosen, let alone ordinary citizens?  And furthermore, at least beyond a few party insiders, know who they are? (Or even know that their Electors are actually qualified to vote formerly for the President of the United States? Colorado Independent; "Report as many as 50 Electors may have improperly cast their votes".)  Yet if there is anything that might be accomplished bringing the Electoral College and the State of Colorado through the Federal court system, one outcome might be to better inform America what a facade the Electoral College actually is, and why it should be put to its final resting place in America's political graveyard.  

When the Hamilton Electors Movement emerged during the weeks following the national election it became apparent that each state had its own particular method of selecting their Presidential Electors, something in the Articles but also something that merely begins the question of equal protection of voters. This concept elicited more questions as to the inherent conflicts of the Electoral College, as being a just manner of electing the leader of America. U.S. Archives, the effect is a mix match of laws and means how and who are chosen, mostly outside the will of the voters. 

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

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.

In 2016, in Colorado, I was elected the evening of Friday, April 15th as a Presidential Elector representing Congressional District 5, during Colorado's Democratic State Convention weekend. Self-nominated by simply filling out a form stating my intent to be an Elector, as a qualified voter and party member in good standing. 

Coincidentally, on the form I was pledged to Bernie Sanders in keeping with my state and CD delegate status as a Bernie supporter, something that proved more than ironic during our pre-Electoral College court testimony, as the state's attorneys kept hammering me on the witness stand about being pledged to Hillary Clinton, therefore impugning me as a faithless renegade Elector who should be despised. When my attorney presented the court a copy of the form as evidence, the lead lawyer for Attorney General and Judge Starr completely discounted it, as an oversight [on their part], but their faces could not hide utter amazement. They insisted I was still pledged to Hillary by their decree. (What they didn't know is that the Colorado Democratic Party Rules state that Electors are to vote for the nominee, though the party rules don't stipulate that I am pledged or must sign a form or oath to such a pledge. This will have implications going forward in Federal Court connecting to Ray vs Blair, 1952.)  

CD5 Assembly convenes, Kathleen Ricker Chair, 306 in attendance

The Congressional District 5 Assembly was attended by 306 delegates and alternates hailing from El Paso, Fremont, Park, Chaffee and Teller counties. 306 out of a possible 349, all who made the journey north to Loveland, "Colorado's Budweiser Center". This despite a late spring Colorado front range snowstorm, always a troublesome event. Sander's campaign held 64% of the credentialed delegates and alternates prior to registration afterward the percentage grew to 68%, as more Hillary delegates and their alternates failed to attend. If Sander's percentage had moved up another two more percentage points, Hillary would have lost a national delegate, but they held on to a 3-to-2 split.

During registration I passed out my homemade business cards promoting my candidacy for Elector, (as did Michael Perez who was running for a Hillary National Delegate).

Cynthia Pulham (center) Michael Perez (left) 

Approved in the party's rules where being in contact with many attendees allowed for prime candidacy exposure. My other campaign efforts included making announcements in social media and direct emails to attendees. Nothing note worthiness, except that most of the delegates in the room were political novices, possessing little knowledge of what was a Presidential Elector or how delegates and electors are actually selected. What everyone was anticipating was the main event of the Assembly; the selection of DNC National Delegates who would go to Philadelphia. Many had dreams of sugar blossoms and fanfare of being included in the city of Brotherly Love. Even though it was mid-April, where the presidential nomination was still in doubt, though Sander's chances were fading each day, some anticipated or hoped for a contested convention, something that has not happened since 1968. Retrospectively, the Democrats probably chose the wrong standard-bearer for 2016's Electoral College type of election, how the the campaign ignored rust belt states fueled by the now confirmed foreign influence, something the party elites and media failed to recognize begrudgingly even now, as Hillary Clinton turned out to be a great popular vote candidate, but ill suited for those decisive state contests.

After registration closed, the election of DNC National Delegates ensued where I naturally found myself in the presentation line with my good friend and political cohort, Mike Maday.

Mike Maday

We were among over a hundred Sander's delegates who lined up for the three DNC delegate selections pledged to Bernie. Mike, a fellow local Democratic Party activist and party regular, we were one a few Sander's supporters who were experienced in party ways and means. Even though Mike was a “Mickey Come Lately” openly supporting Bernie following my personal two-month effort to recruit him to the cause, he still was a favorite for being selected. A Bernie campaign leader described us as "wagon trail guides", akin to an old 50's Western movie featuring Jimmy Stewart and one of his movie side kicks, hired to guide passionate, but naive Bernie politico-newcomers through the wilderness of the Wild West of Colorado Democratic politics.

Prospective DNC Natl Delegate Candidates liwne up 

We joked about our prospects, where I expressed serious trepidation of being elected due to the minimum $5000 price tag to simply be a DNC delegate and something that was actually ministerial in nature. Mike had already attended three previous DNC National Conventions; 2000, 2008, and 2012 and still wanted to go. I told Mike I was going to vote for him, he said likewise. When it was done, Mike indeed won one of the three Bernie national delegate spots!

Judi Ingelido & Jene Jackson

Angelina Michelle far right

 He was joined Jene Hanna (Jackson) and Angelina Hagan (Michelle) for Bernie while the Clinton delegates selected were Judi Ingelido, (a friend and my House District party chair whom I helped in her campaign to become a delegate), and Michael Perez, (whom I sat next to at the registration table and who we helped in each other's campaign). Except for Mike Maday, the four others elected were all highly active campaigners for their respective campaigns. (Note, if you ever want to go to a National Convention you have to work hard for it during the campaign season, it is that effort that is recognized by convention voters.)

The importance of discussing all this is that the couple hundred individuals seeking to be a DNC National Delegate were only given the opportunity to present themselves physically in front of the Assembly, where then they could only state their name, who they were pledged to, and one short sentence about why they wanted or deserved the selection as a national delegate. Not very informative in the least! Sure there were a few enterprising individuals who brought placards, campaign literature, or handouts (like how Perez and I did). But most simply brought themselves, not knowing that almost half the room were also seeking the selection as a delegate. 

The presenting limitations were apparently due to both time and space limits, though in reality, it is because of the genuine lack of political importance attached to the role. Current National Conventions are no longer about being a contested conventions unlike pre-1970's experiences when the convention was truly a deliberative body. Therefore, the national delegate is a mere formality, something all too common throughout the electoral system. Thus, the entire I process, caucus to convention is merely ceremonial staging for television---entirely scripted where delegates are props for crowd reactions. 

Is this how we really elect persons to national import, devoid of discipline or judgment. The Democratic Party's rule regarding the pledged delegate actually holds that it is an open vote of personal conscience, regardless of the pledged status---but not really. Here is an excerpt of the Democratic Party Charter and By-Laws, note the footnote:

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention who are elected based on the results of a primary or caucus are “pledged” to support the presidential candidate whom they represent as a delegate.
Under the Democratic Party’s Rules, pledged delegates are not legally “bound” or required to vote according to their presidential preference on the first ballot at the Convention. Rather, these delegates are, pledged “in all good conscience [to] reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.” [Rule 12.J]
Note: Rule 12J was intended to allow the convention to be a deliberative body. This enables pledged delegates to vote for the presumptive nominee even if they were pledged to someone who is no longer in the race.

Like the national delegate vote the Presidential Elector has taken on a similar status and standing. 

The Assembly and Convention's agenda voting on Presidential Elector actually came about without me noticing the selection process had begun as I was more involved administering the recount of votes for the Congressional District congressional nomination. (There was controversy at this point of the Assembly, as the Party Chair made up a rule, attempting to appease a few strong voices in protest that a vote was taken before Congressional candidates spoke to the Assembly. Kathleen allowed delegates to change their previously cast vote attempting to use another change vote rule designed for platform and not candidates. She then asked the assembly to suspend the already approved rules, again a violation of party rules. But changing or making up rules is something all too common with the out-going chair, but also common among local Democratic organizations.) 

There were far fewer delegates seeking the position of Presidential Elector than for DNC national delegate, amounting to a dozen or so.

Tom Cronin at County Convention 

The most formidable opponent was Tom Cronin, who also is a friend. He is a nationally respected presidential scholar, a full professor from the venerable, Colorado College. Tom had previously been elected as the CD's Presidential Elector in 2012, as he was in 2004, 2000 and 1996. An important anecdote where Colorado has been carried by Democratic Presidential candidates three consecutive elections where previously only five out of twenty-two Presidential elections since 1920; (FDR(2), Truman, LBJ and Bill Clinton in 1992 when Perot split the Republican vote). Tom only actually served as a Presidential Elector in 2012 when Barack Obama carried Colorado a second time. That is the key in officially becoming a Presidential Elector, your party has to win your state for your selection then to become certified. This now begs the question of how does the Electoral College reconcile with the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause: 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

This is where the one-person one vote doctrine comes out of, most notably in the realm of apportionment of electoral districts. The doctrine if fully implemented, challenges the basic premise of the Electoral College where votes in battleground states carry more weight and therefore how presidents are elected without winning the national popular vote. 

In 2008, Jennifer Trujillo-Sanchez, also a personal friend, was a fellow Obama volunteer leader in 2008, was elected out of CD 5 as its Presidential Elector, breaking Tom's string of three consecutive selections. I had been told that Jennifer won by a handful of votes, with me finishing second. 

As the line of candidates for Elector were came to an end, after I had already been announced by the Party's Chair, someone told me about it and I came out from tally table. I ran up along the side of the Convention boldly exclaiming; "I am here, Robert Nemanich, vote for me as your Presidential Elector!" 

Picture of the jumbo screen at the 2016 CO Dem Convention

Receiving an applause, no one anticipated what was to come of the role come November. The next day I was told I had won overwhelmingly, 186-82 besting my friend, Tom Cronin, who mysteriously was absent at the Assembly and Convention. Later many fellow delegates came up to congratulate me, including Clinton supporters. Some to their naivete, believed it too was a ticket to Philadelphia's DNC Convention, of course, that was not true. People seem to have their own mistaken beliefs, especially about electoral procedures, all too common, simply because things are so ministerial and ceremonial as these roles are not actually deliberative voting.

What I did know at the time was the following: After the general election of November 8th, sometime in December, provided the Democratic nominee won in Colorado, I would report to Colorado's Capitol to formally vote for the president. Correspondingly, I knew that my name would be placed in the U.S. Congressional Record, the National Archives and Colorado's Archives, as a Presidential Elector in 2016, all pretty cool if one is self consumed over this. I also was aware that my vote was predetermined by some state statute, the details of which at the time, were unknown. Nor were the requirements of the law brought to my attention by the party or state or anyone else seeking the office. Again I will repeat that by no means did I anticipate that my selection would lead to any national drama following the election.

The question this all begs to be examined: What do these circumstances have anything to do with Alexander Hamilton's expressed purpose of creating the Electoral College in the first place, as the last protection of the republic when in 1788 he penned the Federalist Papers #68:

"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...

... 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...

... 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. ... They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias.

In no way did I, nor the other 11 or so candidates at CD 5's Assembly, including Tom Cronin, the esteemed nationally known presidential scholar, nor the sitting 294 other voting delegates in that room, consider that anyone else would “possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations” as to the election of the president. I know this first hand, because not only did I sign the petition seeking the National Intelligence Report (released on January 6, 2017, eighteen days after the Electoral College vote), regarding Russia's interference and influencing of our general election of 2016, even as I tried personally [naively] directly called the White House the week prior to the Electoral College Day. I actually got a name in the Chief of Staff's offices but was rebuffed by an aide, nicely. (I was even told that they knew who I was, a Presidential Elector, but no briefing would be made available for Electors. Guess making a whole bunch of noise gets you noticed, especially when it comes to electing the president.)

Furthermore, I was neither “detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments...” as I openly campaigned directly to Republican Electors in other states, in a passionate manner, requesting them to consider voting for a Republican other than Donald Trump. The Electoral College was to be the last obstacle in electing a demagogue, but the Electoral College in modern times failed. Alexander Hamilton envisioned this final obstacle, as and much of America believe that Trump was one with “[t]alents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” , and yet we were unable to block him from becoming President, the ultimate purpose of the Electoral College. On January 6th even ten Congresspersons failed to continue in this dissent

Hamilton was wrong. Presidential Electors are not comprised of persons who “possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations” nor are they “detached and divided situation”, where they are still exposed to “heats and ferments” of partisan politics, “task free from any sinister bias.” Electors are in reality, the exact opposite. Electors are extreme partisans of partisans, committed absolutely, to the election of their party and their party's nomination. It is the nature of America's party politics. First hand for the most fervent detractors towards me opposing the Hamilton Electors movement were local Democratic partisans, many who are friends and compatriots here in El Paso County, passionately demanding I vote for Hillary Clinton, even if we found a replacement Republican instead of the suspected demagogue, Trump!

In short, this election proved that indeed the Electoral College is essentially a “rubber stamp”, but a rubber stamp for what? The popular vote? Hardly. This 21st century has seen two of five presidential elections going to the loser of the popular vote, thereby showing that the Electoral College acts as a disadvantage to the majority of the electorate. Five presidents have been elected and inaugurated after losing the popular vote, (J. Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush and now Donald J. Trump). One election was so partisan, (2000), that even the Supreme Court voted in absolutely partisan fashion stopping a recount. Throughout history 11% of all presidents have been elected without a popular vote polarity, none however overturned by a change using faithless electors. So then what is the purpose of the Electoral College, nothing except electing a president without a voting polarity?

Historically, the Electoral College was established as the slave state/free state compromise at the start of the republic. Known as the peculiar institution, slave states were politically propped up by the use of the census counting slaves as 3/5's persons for the purpose of apportioning House of Representative seats. The peculiar institution that human bondage was legal within a free nation of self governed citizens, a contradiction within a conundrum. That peculiarity existed and dominated national politics up to, where it then fueled the Great Civil War. But those slave states' rights ended with the Confederacy, or at least through Reconstruction Era when states' rights morphed into legalized segregation in the South, as a secondary form in justifying states' rights. 

But after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, states' rights essentially eroded into this convoluted phase of some veiled rural states' concerns versus urban states. Now being described as coastal states vs. farm belts, a new form of  regionalism. In some ways another veiled effort towards segregation as one can focus on voter suppression efforts in this new regionalism. But this new state's rights efforts is not exclusive to regionalism as it was with slave states or segregation states of the past. Small states that would naturally oppose the ending of the Electoral College and who possess the minimum of three electoral votes are: Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, No. Dakota, So. Dakota, and Vermont, true rural states without a major urban area. One might also include New Hampshire, Maine and West Virginia, (Hawaii excluded) being mostly rural with four electoral votes bringing the total of 10 small/rural states. Should those states hold hostage to the rest of the nation of 130 million voters where they need to be over represented? 

So what is the Electoral College good for if it does not have the actual capability of overturning or blocking an election of a suspected demagogue, one where there remains a genuine suspicions of having foreign intrigue of manipulating the election to their benefit? If it is not protecting nation and merely is a means for an elite minority to do an end-around the will of the greater electorate majority, than its day has come to put this peculiar institution to its political grave, like the 17th Amendment that changed how U.S. Senators became elected by popular vote. And all this brings us back to how Presidential Electors are chosen, like in CD 5. 

As state political parties and their respective political activists are unaware of who are actually seeking to be Electors or don't take seriously who are chosen, then indeed the Electoral College is a "rubber stamp". But it is more, as it warps the strategies of the national election to the benefit of this veiled minority elite interest. In doing so, this elite minority focuses on what are considered a few battleground states with its voter suppression efforts seeking to gain that small advantage at states' levels reducing a growing minority electorate. This defines a "peculiar institution" in the traditions of slave states and segregation states and clearly is in conflict with the basic tenants of the rights of citizens as to one-person, one-vote and all votes are as equal as all others as in the equal protection clause. 

This is why Polly Baca and I are committed to taking these issues through the Federal Courts exposing the peculiar inequities the Electoral College system poses in electing our president. All of which we hope we can expose its entire peculiarity for the nation, its electorate and political world to see. Ultimately, it comes down to the simple compact democracy has with its citizenry; the consent of the governed. 

As I see things, Donald J. Trump does not possess the consent of the governed and each day he continues to lose his legitimacy as an elected president. He still possesses a hardened constituency but not the nation, in part the electorate knows he really didn't win the election, despite the flailing pronouncements of his regime and supportive media. That is the underlying main purpose of elections, gaining the consent of the governed as that is the primary necessary ingredient for a functioning republic.

It is why both former President Jimmy Carter and former Presidential candidate Al Gore, (who lost his bid for the presidency by an Electoral College defeat despite the popular vote win), recently stated publicly we do not have a functioning democracy or has been hacked. right now. It simply comes down to the sanctity of the vote and expressing one person, one vote equally. And make no mistake any oligarchy or plutocracy or even a autocratic dictatorship does not hold that citizens should have a right to vote their conscience or participate in democratic means that determine policy or persons in government. This is our mission, to reaffirm the American democracy and its working republic.