LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Rebuttal to Previous Column

Merry Christmas friends and neighbors. I want to share some thoughts with you on current events and respond to a recent editorial that appeared on this editorial page.

77 million Americans voted for Donald Trump to be the President of the United States. That alone does not elect Presidents. The candidate that gets the most votes in November determines which political party sends its Presidential Electors to the state capitol in December to cast the states' Electoral Votes. In Nebraska and Maine, each congressional district has its own electoral vote, so the candidate must get the most votes in each district. Donald Trump easily got the most votes in the 3rd congressional district where we live. Chris Vail, who lives in Ogallala and is the Keith County Republican Chairperson and the 3rd District Republican Chair was elected last May at the Republican State Convention in Lincoln to be our 3rd District Presidential Elector. She will go to Lincoln this month and cast our electoral vote for Donald Trump to become president. She will also cast our electoral vote for J.D. Vance to become Vice President.

There are 538 electoral votes dispersed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. That is because there are 100 US Senators (each state has 2), and there are 435 voting members of the House of Representatives from the states and three nonvoting members in the House from the District of Columbia. A Presidential elector must be a private citizen. No one who holds public office or is a member of the military can be an elector. It takes a majority of electoral votes (270) to be elected. Trump should get 312 electoral votes this month. I say he should, but there are, from time to time, "faithless electors" who refuse to vote or vote for someone else. There has never been a President who wasn't elected because of faithless electors.

There was one Vice President who was snubbed by the Electoral College. In 1836 Martin Van Buren was elected President. His running mate was Richard Johnson from Kentucky. Johnson was married to a black woman. All 23 electors in Virginia refused to vote for him. That made him one electoral vote shy of being elected. The US Senate held a contingency election and elected Johnson VP and he was sworn in on schedule with Van Buren. in 1800 there were several candidates on the ballot and no one received enough electoral votes to be elected President. The House held a contingency election where each state has one vote. The House voted 36 times before Thomas Jefferson was elected President. Imagine the back room deals being made there!

The Democratic Party is trying to bypass the Electoral College with their National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. They are getting state legislatures to vote to join this Compact. Those states that join would give their electoral votes to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide. That is what the founding fathers wanted to avoid when they gave us the Electoral College. They didn't want heavily populated states to dominate electing the President.

Half the US population lives in 11 states. The votes in 39 other states would be nearly worthless in the NPVIC. The reason those 39 other states matter now is because they have those two electoral votes because they have 2 US Senators. Those 78 electoral votes are very valuable.

Our founding fathers were brilliant men. They wrote in the separation of powers and checks and balances and an equal protection clause in our Constitution. The Constitution says we all have the right to due process. That includes Donald Trump.

In 2020 Donald Trump had every right to contest the outcome of the voting. I would argue, that since he took an oath to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution, he was required to investigate any situation he thought was suspicious. A fraudulent outcome would be something he is required to stop. He also has the right to legal counsel. The charges against Trump and any attorney he retained are viewed by many people as "lawfare". That is using the law to attack political opponents.

Micheal Cohen was Trump's attorney. Hiring Cohen in the first place might have been a poor choice by Trump but is not an indication of guilt on Trump. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were sentenced for defying a subpoena by Congress. As two of the President's advisors, they are protected by "executive privilege". They should have refused to comply with the subpoena. Remember, the Legislative and the Executive are separate but equal branches of the federal government. As for the hundreds of people being prosecuted for January 6th, 2021 actions, it seems to me to be lawfare as well. Most did nothing violent.

We are learning now that there were FBI "confidential human sources" in the crowd and some of them went into the Capitol building. None have been prosecuted. I guess it depends on how well-connected a person is if they get prosecuted. Remember that the equal protection clause says all laws must be equally enforced.

To the author of that recent column, Mr. WHB: I think you watch too much CNN and MSNBC. Those networks are propaganda machines.

Sincerely,

Warren Phelps,

Chairman of the Cheyenne County Republican Party