{"id":52849,"date":"2020-07-06T19:19:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T01:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-supreme-court-says-colorado-rogue-elector-broke-rules\/"},"modified":"2020-07-07T01:19:04","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T01:19:04","slug":"u-s-supreme-court-says-colorado-rogue-elector-broke-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-supreme-court-says-colorado-rogue-elector-broke-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court says Colorado \u2018rogue elector\u2019 broke rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The U.S. Supreme Court said members of the Electoral College must cast their votes in line with states\u2019 popular vote versus going rogue and casting a vote for a different candidate.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In an 8-0 decision released Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Colorado\u2019s law banning \u201cfaithless electors\u201d would be upheld.<\/p>\n

One of the cases ruled on in the decision, Colorado Department of State v. Baca, began after one presidential elector broke with the popular vote in Colorado and attempted to cast his vote for then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we faced in this case is the threat of a constitutional crisis,\u201d Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said during a news conference Monday. \u201cWhen Coloradans vote in November, they expect their votes to be counted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Baca, a member of a movement interested in pushing for electors\u2019 rights to exercise independent judgment in their vote for president, challenged Colorado\u2019s law on the grounds that the country\u2019s founders intended for electors to have independent discretion.<\/p>\n

But the Supreme Court did not side with that opinion. In her majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the U.S. Constitution is \u201cbarebones about electors,\u201d and therefore the decision about whether to bind them to the will of the popular vote is up to individual states.<\/p>\n

Drew Penrose, the law and policy director for FairVote, said the issue of faithless electors was one \u201chiding in plain sight\u201d as part of the presidential election process. He said it serves as a reminder that American citizens vote for electors, not the actual presidential candidate they see on the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shines a light on the fact that these elections are indirect and state by state,\u201d Penrose said.<\/p>\n

Colorado also has the potential to become a member of the National Popular Vote Coalition, a network of states hoping to bind the Electoral College to the outcome of the country\u2019s popular vote this November. It\u2019s one way states hope to reform the Electoral College as it has increasingly swayed the outcomes of presidential elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important decision for the integrity of our democracy,\u201d Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. \u201cUntil our country can fully reform our outdated Electoral College rules, at least the vote of the people will be reflected by our electors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Foote, a Colorado state senator and member of the National Popular Vote campaign, said the Supreme Court\u2019s decision was a necessary confirmation that states have the power to decide where their electoral votes will go.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of information in the opinion that I think is very helpful to eliminating concerns about the national popular vote, particularly the ability of states to assign their electors in any way they see fit,\u201d Foote said. \u201cAs it turns out, most people think it\u2019s a good idea that the presidential candidate who received the most votes nationwide should win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foote said Monday\u2019s decision is a positive sign for the National Popular Vote\u2019s referendum on Colorado ballots in November, which would bind electors in a pact to elect the candidate who won the popular vote in the presidential election. The pact would go into effect when 270 electors from enough states are bound via similar laws or referendums nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people believe in the concept of one person one vote,\u201d Foote said. \u201cAs the campaign goes on here in Colorado, more and more people will agree with that and vote yes on the National Popular Vote when they see it this fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacob Wallace is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presidential electors must cast vote for states\u2019 popular vote candidate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[819,28,299,29,22],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-national-elections","tag-newsletter","tag-us-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52849"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}