States worry that a handful of ‘faithless’ electors could decide the next presidential election. Challengers say the Constitution leaves up to states the appointment of electors, but that is all. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit decided the issue along the lines that Justice Steven Gonzalez gave in his dissent. The Constitution contemplated that electors “would be free agents,” he said, “to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to who was best qualified for the nation’s highest offices.” “There is no mechanism for state officials to monitor, control, or dictate electoral votes,” said the brief filed by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig and his group Equal Citizens. “Instead, the right to vote in the Constitution and federal law is personal to the electors, and it is supervised by the electors themselves."
At www.washingtonpost.com
