Electoral College Archives - The Pennsylvania Daily Star

Nebraska Votes Against Electoral College Reforms in Blow to Trump

April 6, 2024 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Nebraska Legislature on Wednesday voted against a proposal that would have changed the state’s allocation of presidential electors in the Electoral College, which is a setback for former President Donald Trump’s political interests.

Unlike all U.S. states except for Maine, Nebraska allocates three of its presidential electors based on the majority vote in each of its three congressional districts, while the remaining two electors — accounting for its two U.S. senators — are allocated based on the statewide tally. Republican state Sen. Julie Slama of Lincoln on Wednesday introduced a bill amendment that would change this system to a “winner-take-all” allocation — whereby all electoral votes would go to the candidate who wins statewide, purportedly benefitting the Republican nominee — though the measure failed to advance by a vote of 9 yeas to 36 nays.

Commentary: Was It Legal to Appoint Jack Smith in the First Place?

February 3, 2024 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Was Special Counsel Jack Smith illegally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and is his prosecution of former Pres. Donald Trump unlawful? That is the intriguing issue raised in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court by Schaerr Jaffe, LLP, on behalf of former Attorney General Ed Meese and two law professors, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, in the case of U.S. v. Trump.

We won’t get an immediate answer to this question because on the Friday before Christmas, the Supreme Court issued a one-line order refusing to take up Smith’s request that the court review Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, which was denied by the trial court, in the federal prosecution being pursued by Smith in the District of Columbia. The special counsel had petitioned the court to take the case on an expedited basis, urging the justices to bypass review by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie Warns States Barring Trump: The House of Representatives Decides Whether to Certify Their Electors

December 31, 2023 Just the News

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., warned states acting to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot that the House of Representatives will decide whether to certify states’ electors.

New Forecast Says the 2024 Election Will Come Down to These Four States

July 29, 2023July 28, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

A new political forecast released Thursday argues that the 2024 general election could come down to four states — Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The four “toss-ups” and their 56 Electoral College votes make for a “very narrow playing field” in 2024, which The Cook Political Report views as being another matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to author Amy Walter. Whether a third-party ticket is present, as well as the sway of suburban, moderate and Latino voters, will be key in determining the outcome of these battleground states.

Movement to Decide Presidency by Popular Vote Gains States, Momentum But Also Faces Challenges

June 15, 2023 Just the News

The effort to change how the United States elects its presidents – from the existing Electoral College process to a national popular vote – is gaining momentum, but critics are questioning its legality and whether it improves the country’s election system.

Sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, with Minnesota being the latest and Michigan and Nevada considering it.

Advocates Warn of ‘Desperate’ Movement to Undermine the Electoral College

April 25, 2023 Admin

An organization’s efforts to circumvent states’ rights are “getting desperate” as they try new ways to push their interstate compact through state legislatures, two pro-Electoral College advocacy groups told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The National Popular Vote (NPV) is a group initiative to reform the U.S.’ two-step, Electoral College system by ensuring that the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide becomes the president. Now that NPV has enacted its interstate compact in all of the “easy,” bluer states as a standalone bill, it is getting creative to force the law through in swing states like Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan and Maine, Trent England of Save Our States and Jasper Hendricks of Democrats for the Electoral College told the DCNF.

Election Transparency Initiative Denounces Marc Elias’ Requested Change to Electoral Count Act Reform

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

A right-leaning election reform outfit on Wednesday denounced the current version of legislation to reform the Electoral Count Act, particularly a provision urged by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias.

The original act was enacted in 1887 to prevent presidential election crises such as that of 1876, during which three states submitted competing groups of electors, forcing Congress to determine how to resolve the count. Ultimately Republican Rutherford B. Hayes emerged victorious over Democrat Samuel Tilden.

Commentary: Manchin-Collins Bill Would End the 1887 Electoral Count Act’s Provision of State Legislatures Choosing Presidential Electors

December 13, 2022December 12, 2022 Admin

Legislation offered by Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) would repeal Sections 1 and 2 of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, and replace the appointment of electors by state legislatures in the event a state fails to make a choice in that election under current federal law to “the executive of each State”.

3 U.S.C. Section 2 currently states, “Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.”

Commentary: The Cry-Baby Leftist Mind

July 1, 2022June 30, 2022 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Modern progressives assume moral and intellectual authority.

Consequently, their supposedly superior ends naturally justify almost any means necessary to achieve them.

Commentary: The Left Only Sees Success by Altering the Rules of Governance

May 6, 2022May 5, 2022 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Court packing—the attempt to enlarge the size of the Supreme Court for short-term political purposes—used to be a dirty word in the history of American jurisprudence.

The tradition of a nine-person Supreme Court is now 153 years old. The last attempt to expand it for political gain was President Franklin Roosevelt’s failed effort in 1937. FDR’s gambit was so blatantly political that even his overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress rebuffed him.

Commentary: In 2022, Voters Must Stand Up to America’s Uniparty Empire

February 23, 2022February 22, 2022 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

If we follow the conventional political thinking, Republicans can anticipate an electoral shift during the November midterm elections and appear likely to recapture the White House in 2024. A grassroots revolt is already showing signs that the Democrats should expect to be punished for politicizing education and mismanaging COVID policy.

If we follow the conventional thinking even further, this will spell success for a usual cast of Republican-leaning characters in leadership and consulting roles. Karl Rove is likely already updating his fee structure. Veterans of the two Bush Administrations will send their résumés east in hopes of retaining old posts so they can steer contracts and favors back to their allies and former employers.

Right, Left, Right, Left, the hypnotic rhythm drums on—briefly interrupted only by an aberrational Trump Administration or popular uprising—but it all returns to the statists’ status quo in the end. The uniparty simply shifts its weight from its left foot to its right while business proceeds as usual.

Trump Blasts Pence’s Claims About January 6: Vice Presidency Not an ‘Automatic Conveyor Belt for Old Crow Mitch McConnell to Get Biden Elected President’

February 7, 2022February 7, 2022 Michael Patrick Leahy

Former President Donald Trump released a blistering attack Friday afternoon on former Vice President Mike Pence’s claims earlier in the day about the January 6, 2021 Joint Session of Congress over which Pence presided at which Electoral College votes submitted by the states were counted.

In a speech before the Florida Chapter of the Federalist Society in Orlando on Friday, Pence asserted, “There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.” (emphasis added)

Commentary: The Wall Street Journal’s Shabby Rebuttal of Trump Settles Nothing

November 3, 2021November 2, 2021 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

President Trump’s October 28 letter to the Wall Street Journal detailing some of his complaints about the 2020 election and the Journal’s editorial comment on it the following day clearly reveal the shortcomings of both sides of this argument. But the important thing to note is that there are two sides to the argument over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election result.

The prolonged and intensive effort in which the Wall Street Journal has eagerly participated, to suppress and throttle the merest suggestion of illegitimacy surrounding the 2020 election result, has failed. It has always been understandable why there would be a great body of opinion that would wish to suppress any consideration of the question. It is a sobering and demoralizing thing to imagine that the vastly important process of choosing the president of the United States could possibly be an erroneous or even a fraudulent process.

REVIEW: Hemingway’s ‘Rigged’ a Bone Chilling Page-Turner into the 2020 Election

November 2, 2021November 1, 2021 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

We are a year overdue for the true story of the 2020 elections. Mollie Hemingway has at last delivered it to us in one tidy volume.

It’s a complex story, which makes for a weighty book. The research is thorough, the writing is evidentiary, the style is clinical—like investigative journalism and social science used to be. The endnotes alone run nearly 100 pages.

Reading Rigged, one isn’t jarred by hyperbole, conjecture, or spin. Hemingway is unequivocal on progressive malice, yet she can be scathing of Republicans, too. She is particularly critical of Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to publicize fraud nationally, thereby undermining prior case-by-case efforts to get particular state courts to recognize particular violations of particular state laws.