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kleinbl00  ·  1233 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: November 11, 2020

29 states are bound by law to elect that state's winner of the popular vote. The only one that doesn't that matters is Pennsylvania, whose electors are chosen by the leader of the political party that won the popular vote. In other words, Pennsylvania's electors will be fierce party loyalists.

Were it to go any other way there would be a whole lot of legal abyss-gazing that nobody wants to engage. Suppose Pennsylvania could somehow screw this up. First thing that happens is every civil rights group on the planet sues Pennsylvania for violating the citizenship of everyone in Pennsylvania. That quickly rockets up to the court where the ACLU (or the equivalent) will argue that the electoral college violates the 5th Amendment - if they can't influence the country's choice of president, they have no due process. Then the Supreme Court either gets to (A) rule that the electoral college is unconstitutional or (B) rule that citizens are not guaranteed the right to choose their president. If (A) then the South has lost the ballgame forever, if (B) then the Supreme Court better gamble that Trump wins this shit and protects an incompetent authoritarian administration forever against all comers when in fact, a 5-million-vote plurality, combined with the majority of the rest of the world, have rejected the legitimacy of Trump's claims.

What happens when the Western States Compact rejects the Supreme Court?

John Roberts bent over backwards to rule that interstate commerce law made Obamacare legal. He's largely (not entirely) a law-and-order, due-process kinda guy. That court would toss the Electoral College before they'd toss the 5th amendment right to vote. And no thinking Republican wants to give him that choice.