{"id":66325,"date":"2020-01-24T15:18:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T22:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-thinks-it-can-win-electors-case-in-court\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:34:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:34:37","slug":"colorado-thinks-it-can-win-electors-case-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-thinks-it-can-win-electors-case-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado thinks it can win electors case in court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser at a news conference in March announcing a lawsuit against the Trump administration.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to hear Colorado\u2019s appeal of a federal court ruling that allows<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold last October petitioned the court to hear the case, hoping to avoid chaos in November. Griswold has said the outcome affects \u201cthe very foundation of our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weiser praised the Supreme Court\u2019s decision, saying the case is \u201cripe for review\u201d and that he\u2019s hopeful the panel will rule in Colorado\u2019s favor and not fundamentally alter the Electoral College, the U.S. system of electing presidents.<\/p>\n

The situation dates to 2016, when then-Secretary of State Wayne Williams removed a presidential elector who refused to vote for Hilary Clinton \u2013 even though Clinton won the popular vote in Colorado. In August, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Denver, ruled that the removal of the elector, Micheal Baca, was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Baca, one of Colorado\u2019s nine electoral voters, tried to cast his ballot for then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, instead of Clinton as part of an attempt by a handful of electors across the country to block Republican Donald Trump from becoming president. But the 10th Circuit found that Colorado didn\u2019t have authority to remove Baca as an elector, eliminating the state\u2019s ability to bind electors to follow the will of Colorado voters.<\/p>\n

Two other electors \u2013 Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich \u2013 intended to follow Baca\u2019s lead but ultimately did not. The three have battled the Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office in court since the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

They are represented by Equal Citizens, led by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig.<\/p>\n

The three have been referred to as \u201cfaithless\u201d or \u201cHamilton\u201d electors, the latter referring to U.S. founding father Alexander Hamilton, who helped outline the role of presidential electors in the Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are glad the Supreme Court has recognized the paramount importance of clearly determining the rules of the road for presidential electors for the upcoming election and all future elections,\u201d Lessig said in a written statement. \u201cMy team and I will get right to work on our briefs, and we look forward to a full and fair hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemanich, who works as a discipline and suspension coordinator in Colorado Springs, where he lives, said the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision to take the case will give the three Colorado presidential electors \u201cthe exposure we are looking for.\u201d He feels the Electoral College is unfair and would prefer a system where the winner of the national popular vote would become president.<\/p>\n

Clinton actually won more votes than Trump nationally. but lost the presidency to him because he won the Electoral College in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get back to what a Democracy is and that will be a big way of fixing our totally split up, partisan political process and government,\u201d Nemanich said Friday. \u201cOnce politicians are beholden to the voters, they tend to start following what the voters wishes are or they get thrown out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemanich says he absolutely plans to travel to Washington, D.C., for oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t miss that for the world,\u201d he said, adding that he\u2019s been talking to national media outlets about the case. \u201cWe\u2019re making history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weiser says he thinks Colorado\u2019s case is solid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very strong textual argument,\u201d Weiser said last week, citing the Constitution\u2019s provision that \u201ceach state shall appoint in such manner as a legislature may direct electors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say the power to appoint includes the power to remove,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole line of Supreme Court cases on this point. If the other side\u2019s argument wins, that means if an elector took a bribe, the state is powerless to do anything. And I view that to be untenable, both as a matter of text of the Constitution and of common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weiser expects a decision, which will have national implications, to be handed down before the November election. The next step involves oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Most states have laws binding presidential electors to vote for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, presidential electors are chosen by individual political parties at their respective state conventions.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnelected and unaccountable presidential electors should not be allowed to decide the presidential election without regard to voters\u2019 choices and state law,\u201d Griswold said in a written statement. \u201cWhen Americans vote in the presidential election, we are exercising our most fundamental right \u2013 the right to self-governance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court also agreed to hear a similar case out of Washington state in which judges ruled that three presidential electors there, who also tried to block Trump from becoming president, were fined $1,000 for declining to follow the will of voters and cast their ballots for Clinton.<\/p>\n

The Washington and Colorado cases were merged to be heard simultaneously by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Read more at coloradosun.com.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

question: Must presidential electors follow the popular vote?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66325","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=66325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90307,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66325\/revisions\/90307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66325"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}