The U.S. appeals court’s ruling in Denver Tuesday slowed efforts by progressives to eliminate the Electoral College and replace it with a simple popular vote.
The court said Electoral College members can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice and aren’t bound by the popular vote in their states.
The ruling applies only to Colorado and five other states in the 10th Circuit: Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.
The split decision by the Denver appeals court stated: “Article II and the Twelfth Amendment provide presidential electors the right to cast a vote for President and Vice President with discretion. And the state does not possess countervailing authority to remove an elector and to cancel his vote in response to the exercise of that Constitutional right.”
The ruling continued, “The Electoral College did not exist before ratification of the federal Constitution, and thus the states could reserve no rights related to it under the Tenth Amendment. Rather, the states possess only the rights expressly delegated to them in Article II and the Twelfth Amendment.”
The court concluded that once electors assume their role in the Electoral College, they are federal employees and serve a “federal function” outside of state control.
Colorado’s current secretary of state, Jena Griswold, criticized the ruling but did not say if she would appeal.
The Electoral College system makes it so when voters cast a ballot for president, they are actually choosing members of the Electoral College, called electors, who are pledged to that presidential candidate. The electors then choose the president.
Electors usually vote for the popular vote winner, and some states have laws requiring them to do so.
Democrats have traditionally led in heavily populated states like California and New York, and have long fought against the Electoral College. States receive electoral votes equivalent to their number of congressional districts plus senators, which allows less populous states to have more impact than they would under a simple popular vote system, preventing a scenario where only a handful of states decide every election.
“Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the Electoral College effectively weighs white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a ‘one person, one vote’ system where all our votes are counted equally,” she wrote.
“Presidential candidates would do two things, and only two things: go to high-dollar donor events and hobnob with the swells who have all the money, and then they would take that money and they would spend it advertising in just those four states. Most of America would never see a candidate, would never hear an ad.”
“It prevents candidates from winning an election by focusing only on high-population urban centers (the big cities), ignoring smaller states and the more rural areas of the country—the places that progressives and media elites consider flyover country,” he said.
