"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 voteSo 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
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
1) Any convention of delegates of a political party or any committee authorized by resolution of the convention may nominate presidential electors.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 -
(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.
(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;
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.
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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