Screen shot of big board at the Colorado's Democratic State Convention

I am one of the Electoral College Electors from Colorado. This is by virtue of Hillary Clinton prevailing in Colorado (moving me from a nominated certified Elector to “actual” Elector). Late last week I canvassed half my fellow CO Electors beginning with Micheal Baca, who is mentioned here in the Denver Post article: Colorado presidential elector seeks to block Donald Trump from White House, also talked to numerous political reporters both print and national on line media, (AKA; John Frank the author of the above article and Kyle Cheney from Politico, author of this article, Here are the people who will cast the formal vote for president next month​, political science and presidential history university scholars, law school professors, political professionals, elected and government officials and I have come to this conclusion: INDEED THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS IN AN HISTORIC PLAY. Where this goes is speculation but sentiment is building that the Electors cannot sit by and be ceremonial.

This assertion is based on the above observations where each Elector I talked to is interested in participating in some form of action. This includes the majority being Hillary supporters and party regulars. The reporters and political persons all tell me they are hearing similar, consistent, sentiments across this country. The fact that this election cycle has consistently been unprecedented, and unpredictable, and as those who know math, and mathematical trends, know that trends continue until the something stops that trend line. So why would this election cycle stop being weird until it is constitutionally over? There is no reason, and why the framers put in the Electoral College in the constitution in the first place.

Something else that is apparent, is that National Electors who take action will have to choose between their party partisanship and finding a rational and responsible pathway to doing what is best for the nation in fulfilling their constitutional duties of protecting our constitutional form of government from excesses of democracy, (or corruption or election manipulation), and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation. Previously, all predictions and expectations regarding this election’s outcome regarding the projection Electoral College were based on Electors being wholly partisan, and yet those are not the sentiments being expressed from my fellow Colorado’s Electors. Nor are they what I am being told are sentiments by some or at least a few Republican Electors either.

So where is this leading us over the next 30 days to December 19, 2016, which is Electoral College Day? The first order, of business is to seek to unshackle our political enslavement restricting Elector’s voting privileges in 29 states that possess state laws from Electors voting their conscience. Those laws are unconstitutional. Those laws attempt to prescribe a voting enslavement of Elector’s through various methods of coercion, (fines, threat of criminal prosecution, expulsion or replacement), reflecting only the popular vote in their respective states, as only vote can be made. Seemingly, this appears to be justified with good intentions to enfranchise the ordinary citizen’s popular vote and yet, these laws are in direct conflict with the constitution as to the purpose and intent of the Electoral College and the jurisdiction that the Federal government possessing supremacy through the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution. Article Six in the US Constitution:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States

In 1952, in a US Supreme Court Case No. 649 Ray vs Blair the court ruled that Elector’s indeed possess the right and duty of expressing free will where the Supreme Court upheld a pledge requirement for candidates running for the position of elector.

A state’s or a political party’s exclusion of candidates from a party primary because they will not pledge to support the party’s nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election, pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party. It is an exercise of the state’s right to appoint electors in such manner, subject to possible constitutional limitations as it may choose...... that the holding in Ray applied only to an elector’s name being placed on a ballot for a primary election.

Justice Reed wrote just a few paragraphs later that even if such pledges could not be constitutionally enforced regarding the elector’s actual Electoral College vote after the general election, that did not imply eliciting the pledge as a condition for a party selecting an elector was also unconstitutional.

Ray vs Blair No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the best men qualified to the Nation’s highest offices.* (Citing Federalist Paper #68.) Certainly under that plan no state law can control the elector in the performance of his Federal duty, say more than it could a United States Senator chosen by and represents its State.

And yet the press and media continue to try to promote the idea stating almost in every article that at least 29 states do not allow Electors to exercise their independent and non partisan judgment. Interestingly, Justice Reed cited Federalist Papers 68, page 441-442 in his footnotes which appears to directly correlate to 2016’s election cycle:

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture. It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

This is our duty as Electors in 2016 we must affirm our right to vote our conscience. And my canvass of fellow Colorado Electors appears to confirm that we understand that we have much more than a ceremonial function but a duty to this complicated investigation. Yet still state’s continue to enslave their Elector’s votes. From the Denver Post article:

There’s no federal law requiring electors to vote for the party that nominated them, but 29 states and Washington, D.C., have laws that attempt to force presidential electors to vote with the will of their state’s voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some states impose fines. Others, like Colorado, don’t allow for so-called “faithless electors.” If an elector does not cast a vote for the right candidate, they are removed and replaced with a new elector, according to the Colorado secretary of state’s office. So Baca is required under Colorado law to cast his vote for Clinton because she won the state’s nine electoral votes.

Specifically the State Law that is being cited is 1-4-304. Presidential electors.

(1) The presidential electors shall convene at the capital of the state, in the office of the governor at the capitol building, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in the first December following their election at the hour of 12 noon and take the oath required by law for presidential electors. If any vacancy occurs in the office of a presidential elector because of death, refusal to act, absence, or other cause, the presidential electors present shall immediately proceed to fill the vacancy in the electoral college. When all vacancies have -111- Colorado Revised Statutes 2016 been filled, the presidential electors shall proceed to perform the duties required of them by the constitution and laws of the United States. The vote for president and vice president shall be taken by open ballot. (2) The secretary of state shall give notice in writing to each of the presidential electors of the time and place of the meeting at least ten days prior to the meeting. (3) The secretary of state shall provide the presidential electors with the necessary blanks, forms, certificates, or other papers or documents required to enable them to properly perform their duties. (4) If desired, the presidential electors may have the advice of the attorney general of the state in regard to their official duties. ( 5) Each presidential elector shall vote for the presidential candidate and, by separate ballot, vice-presidential candidate who received the highest number of votes at the preceding general election in this state. [emphasis added]