By Jim Ellis
Colorado Elector Michael Baca / 9NEWS
Thirty states, including Colorado, have a statutory requirement that the official electors, in Colorado’s case nine individuals, cast their vote for the presidential candidate who carried the state. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton carried the Centennial State over Donald Trump, 48-43 percent.
Baca was coalescing with other electors around the country, the so-called “Hamilton Electors,” who thought they could convince enough members in Trump states to vote for another candidate in order to force him below the 270 minimum electoral vote threshold. In the election, Trump’s victory states awarded him 306 electoral votes. Places like Colorado, however, that went for Clinton, would do Trump no damage if its electors did not carry through with the voters’ expressed desire, illustrating one of several ways that the “Hamilton” strategy was fundamentally flawed.
After Baca’s removal, he quickly filed his lawsuit arguing that his constitutional rights were violated because the state has no authority to bind its electors. Baca lost at the federal district level but now has won a 2-1 appellate decision before a three-judge panel.
What happens now? The 10th Circuit is in conflict with a previous Washington state Supreme Court ruling that came to the opposite conclusion. Thus, it is likely that the US Supreme Court will be petitioned though the Washington ruling, because it comes from a state court, is a lesser factor in the federal domain.
The Colorado elector legal action, like the Compact Coalition that is attempting to convince states holding a majority of electoral votes to agree to have their electors vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how the individual state voted, is designed to eliminate the Electoral College’s power and change the US voting system to a straight popular vote.
