Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!mcdchg!heiby
From: heiby@mcdchg.chi.il.us (Ron Heiby)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Suggestions for a new backbone
Message-ID: <14009@mcdchg.chi.il.us>
Date: 2 Nov 88 16:10:35 GMT
References: <5178@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <8187@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <895@ncar.ucar.edu> <8280@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: heiby@mcdchg.chi.il.us (Ron Heiby)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer, Schaumburg, IL
Lines: 21

The Beach Bum (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US) writes:
> At that point, you, as a member of the backbone *DON'T* have an opinion.
> You have an obligation to perform your responsibility.  Come November 8th
> when the voters in this country elect an electoral college to select the
> president, the members of that college will not have as an option doing
> something other than performing their responsibility.

You imply that the electors have no choice as to how they cast their votes.
I would challenge you to site a reference to the U.S. Constitution that
supports this view.  If the President-elect dies between the popular vote
and the electoral voting, the elector has no obligation to vote for a dead
person.  Just because 99.99% of the time, the electors do go along with
the popular vote that elected *them*, doesn't mean that they *have* to.
Their responsibility is to cast a vote.  The Constitution says nothing about
for whom they must cast their vote.  When the Constitution was written, there
wasn't even a popular vote for President!

I really don't want to start arguing the past all over again.  I'd be
happy to tell you my views via private email.
-- 
Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.chi.il.us	Moderator: comp.newprod
"There is a fine line between stupidity and cleverness." (This is Spinal Tap)