Supreme Court deciding Faithless Electors in the Electoral College case.

Right now our Supreme Court is adjudicating the case of the so called faithless electors who refused to vote for the popular vote winner of their state, as they had pledged to do, instead voting for anyone else? Can they be forced to vote for someone they do not approve of personally. Ten such electors chose to go their own way in the 2016 election.
There are 538 party insiders who are chosen by their states to elect our president and vice president, meaning only 269 votes is required to win the election. With the hundreds of millions and in some cases billions spent by both parties on each election, someone just might decide to offer 269 electors ONE or TWO MILLION DOLLARS each to vote for their candidate??
This strikes me as a very easy way to buy an election, putting so much power in so few hands?? These electors are largely invisible and unknown to the general public of their respective states.

 

I see good arguments in favor of against both sides of the matter. What this underscores is the complete nonsense of the Electoral College system. It might have been a good idea in the 18th Century.... not anymore.

 

The same logic now as in the 18th Century. We are a nation of states. It keeps the larger states from running roughshod over the smaller states.

 

They don’t like that concept.

 

You think?

 

Our founders were the visionaries, our current leftist will never be

 

Its a back door the leftist would like brought back to this country, segregation The ways of the old south and their democrat way is forever instilled in their DNA's.. Clearly there are 42 states that Americans are only 3/5 the worth of those elitist leftist or should we say ruling class or simply Massa

 

Because Trump won?

 

We are a nation of PEOPLE not states.

 

The electoral college elected both George W.Bush and Dirty Donald, each lost the popular vote.

 

No we're not. We're a nation of People. That's why the constitution starts with "We The People". Not with "We the States".

 

No. Because he lost.

 

The full preamble.
" We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
If you read the whole preamble, they are clearly talking about the states. "Perfect Union", "Common Defense". United States of America".

The fact remains, they set up the EC in order to prevent larger states from running over the small states. If if was not that reason, they would have had each electoral vote represent a set number of people.

 

I think the most glaring problem with only 538 electors picking our president and vice president is how easy it would be to buy off or bribe 270 of them.

 

A higher number of which defected from the Hillary pool - more than twice as many that defected from Trump
Go figure.

270. Majority.

 

The popular vote has its say in the house. Where it belongs. The popular vote should not be the determining factor of the presidency. That’s the whole reason they made it like that in the first place.

 

That's true. Removing the electoral college would put the republican party out of business. We need to put both parties out of business.

 

In reality, the popular vote only has a say in each individual state election - for the house seat, for the senate seat, for the slate of electors, etc.

Someone created the "Senate popular vote" to they could complain about the fact Democrats got millions more votes than Republicans, but the Republicans still control the Senate.

These people simply cannot accept the fact they lost.

 

Wrong! It's the tranquility, the liberty, the posterity... of the people. Unless you believe that a state can have descendants.

It refers to people. The "United States of America" is the mechanism established at that point in time in Order to obtain those goals for We The People.

 

Are there no states of people?

 

The "logic" back then was actually quite simple: only white male property owners were allowed to vote, which left those colonies with much fewer white male property owners (primarily slave states in the south) feeling shorted on power. To try to even that out, they came up with the EC, which originally did two things: 1. A white man was considered a property owner if he owned at least one slave. 2. To increase a colony's alloted number of EC votes, which has always been based on population, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person.

 

And it worked ok for a time. But not anymore... Now, as the OP correctly illustrates, it means that either the electors are forced to vote in a certain way, in which case they are superfluous. Or they are allowed to vote as they wish, which could make the Presidency a position that can be bought and sold.

 

The inaccuracies of your post aside...
So?

 

It refers to a more perfect union and then calls it the United States of America.

But ultimately, that makes no difference. It was established this way to protect the smaller states from the larger states. The evidence is clear. If they intended otherwise, they would have made the number of people each electoral vote represented approximately equal. They chose to not to do that because they intended the states to be more equal than might be represented by population alone.

 

It is an outdated method no longer necessary assuming a tie of 269-269 then it goes to the congress to decide. It should be real democracy with the citizens of the country deciding the winner not 538 party hack insiders from either party.