JP>Each PARTY nominates a slate of electors pledged to vote for their
JP>candidate.  When you vote for President, you are voting for WHICH
JP>slate of electors gets to represent your state to the elctoral
JP>college.
JP>Presumably, if Harry Browne is on the ballot in your state, that
JP>means there is a slate of libertarian electors that will get to go to
JP>the electoral college if Browne wins.
JP>You seem to be saying that the STATE selects the electors, who are
JP>free to ignore the voters wishes.
They do.  It's clearly spelled out in the Constitution:
________________________________
Article II.
a2.Section 1.
2 Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof
may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators
and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress:
but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust
or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
_________________________________
How the _states_ chose to select and control those electors, varies from
state to state.  Yes, it is party controlled, but only through the state
government, not directly.  And yes, there have been very few instances
of the electorial collage voting outside the _current_, dominating
parties.  However, it has not been particularly uncommon for the
electorial collage to elect a president the majority of the people
rejected.
In Maryland as I understand it, the electors have already been selected.
The vote of a Maryland resident, and probably many other states as well,
really amounts to nothing other then an expression of your desires.
Which are properly ignored under the Constitution.
(added later) Well I don't know if it was Maryland or Virginia, but G
Gorden Liddy had on the phone today a woman who _is_ already appointed
to the electorial college.  Wish I'd have gone to lunch about 2 minutes
earlier then I did, so I could have heard the whole conversation, and
not just the tail end of it.  Apparently she's considering voting
outside the rules imposed upon her for that election.
--- InterEcho 1.18
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