Sen. Pearson discusses proposal to undermine the Electoral College system for Vermont

Vermont could join more than a dozen other states in an effort to undermine the Electoral College system that has been in place since the nation’s founding.

On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, testified on behalf of S.122, a bill that would allow the canvassing committee to issue certificates of election to the electors nominated in association with the national popular vote winner in a presidential election.

“As folks know, I continue to work on the national popular vote around the country, so I pay attention to this quirky system that we have for electing the president,” Pearson told the Senate Committee on Government Operations.

Michael Bielawski/TNR

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: Two-in-three Republicans nationwide believe the 2020 presidential election involved significant election fraud.

He noted the the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer on whether or not there can be “faithless electors.” In the Electoral College system, delegates from each state are expected to vote for the president based on how the residents of that state voted at the polls. The court ruled in favor of letting states “bind” their electors, and added that they can be tied to the national popular vote, instead of the results of the Electoral College system.

According to Pearson, “faithless electors” are those who cast their votes differently from their electorate. He does not believe such occurrences have impacted the overall outcome of a presidential election.

Vermont law states that the electors are bound to the electorate of Vermont, meaning they are not currently bound to the popular vote across the whole nation. Vermont has enacted a national popular vote option, but it doesn’t work if Vermont voters say differently.

“Our statute did not handle the scenario where a national popular vote would be dictating an election,” Pearson said. “Folks will remember that Vermont has enacted national popular vote, and so, in fact, in a scenario where our three electors were kind of stemming from whoever got the most votes in the country, our faithless elector law that was binding them was at odds with, potentially, the national popular vote.”

Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, said the bill may not advance from this committee this legislative session. Pearson noted that the soonest his legislation would be relevant is the 2024 presidential election.

Sen. Kesha Ram, D-Chittenden, was an elector for the last election. During the hearing she said it could be difficult getting the change Pearson wants.

“I got some calls from national Electoral College experts and people who look at the issue, and for many of them, the verdict was it would take a long time, or be quite impossible, for us to be able to abolish the Electoral College,” she said.

Proponents of the Electoral College system argue its main purpose is to give small, rural states a voice in elections, and to help contain the impact of potential voter fraud.

“The Electoral College lessens the chance of voting fraud affecting the outcome of a national vote by compartmentalizing the outcome among the various states,” Victor Davis Hanson wrote in a recent op-ed. “It usually turns the presidential election into a contest between two major parties that alone have the resources to campaign nationwide.”

The public integrity of the national elections is at a historic low. Nearly two-thirds of all Republicans believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Vermont’s secretary of state continues to dismiss concerns about election fraud. “Voter fraud is exceedingly rare,” Secretary of State Jim Condos wrote in October.

In his opinion piece, Hanson addresses the compact of states that Pearson referred to in the committee.

“Democrats have pushed “The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” an agreement among a group of states that would force state electors to vote in accordance with the national popular vote and ignore their own state tallies,” Hanson wrote.

According to Pearson, 15 states have signed on to that compact.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Images courtesy of Fox News and Michael Bielawski/TNR

15 thoughts on “Sen. Pearson discusses proposal to undermine the Electoral College system for Vermont

  1. This proposal is to disenfranchise voters in rural America. Only the big cities will matter and so the winning candidate will be the one who best caters to the cities. Citizens in rural America will be second class citizens. Yet the city people live off the produce of rural America. As rural America is disinsensitivise to produce, the cities will discover that they should not have stripped them of their voice. It I understandable that a short-sighted person running for office in a city would pander with a proposal like this, but pushing an idea like this in a rural area should be a recipe for defeat … if the people have the ability to think things through.

  2. Pearson is another Loony Tune Progressive that has one objective, tear down our democratic republic and move it to a centralized cabal. They couldn’t care less about individual votes unless it affects themselves. They work under the theme of “do as I say, not as I do”.

    Interestingly, American still attracts millions of people worldwide that will give up everything to be able to come here to live and to get away from the likes of people like Mr. Pearson. These are people who are sick of centralized governments run by the few powerful people.

    As a Vermont legislator, you would think his primary concern is to represent all Vermonters. Changing the Electoral College to vote as the legislature wants, because they think they know better than the stupid woodchucks, would make Vermont even more of a red headed stepchild that everyone already ignores.

    We must get these leftist zealots out of our government. To Progressives, this is a game of getting to fashion a social experiment that cares little about the working person, the family unit and basic survival. It is all about who can be recognized as the most radical instigator to oppress the citizenry. Pearson is just one of the candidates vying for that sad distinction!

    Shameful!

  3. Sen Pearson is cleverly engaging is wishful fantasizing.
    He is trying to disingenuously second-guess the FOUNDING FATHERS

    The US Constitution specifically states, each state legislature has the CONSTITUTIONAL power to select the state ELECTORS; Vermont is entitled to 3 ELECTORS.

    State Legislatures are not allowed to delegate that power to any entities, including the Secretary of State and the Governor. Such transfer would be unconstitutional.

    The US constitution does not make any mention of popular votes.

    The US Constitution does not mention any restrictions on state Legislatures regarding the exercise of their power to select ELECTORS.

    That means, no matter the outcome of a popular vote, the Legislatures have the power to appoint ELECTORS.

    Heeding the outcome of a popular vote is strictly at the discretion of the Legislature.

    • “That means, no matter the outcome of a popular vote, the Legislatures have the power to appoint ELECTORS”

      Should read:

      That means, no matter the outcome of a popular vote, the Legislatures have the power (conferred onto them by the US Constitution) to SELECT AND APPOINT ELECTORS, i.e., not the Secretary of State, not any kind of Executive Branch boards, not the Governor.

      What parts of the US Constitution and Vermont State Constitution does Sen. Pearson not understand?

      Does he not know the US is a REPUBLIC consisting of 50 SOVEREIGN STATES THAT FORMED A UNION?

      At one point in the 1700s, Vermont called itself “Republic of Vermont”.

  4. Senator Pearson moves to remove any incentive to bother going to the polls on election day for the Vermonters. And the Democrats in DC are moving to nationalize the election process, which is blatantly in violation of the Constitution which delegates to the federal government only the authority to set the day on which the elections are held. Not that it bothers them.

  5. “…quirky system that we have for electing the president,” ? Yeah, I think that was kinda the point. We are talking about the Constitution here. Our system is wildly different from any form of government in the world at that time. And it is still going strong after almost 231 years. So we must be doing something right. Why does it need to be changed ?

    • So they can rule over us and bring in a new form of government, remove science and God from our country, in their ever present quest for money and power.

      Nothing nefarious of course.

  6. As long as Vermont has a Liberal Cancer in Montpelier, they will keep trying to change
    our current way of life, for their power control agenda…….pathetic.

    The gaggle of fools we have under the golden ” Doom” and that’s what we keep on
    getting, Doom & Gloom…………..wake up people !!

  7. He is violating his sworn duty to uphold the republic and replace it with a democracy.

    If our population had a proper education in civics they would understand he is making any Vote cast in Vermont worthless.

    • That was my question, did he not swear a oath or did he swear with his fingers crossed behind his back,Vermont needs to rid it’s self of these totalitarian Marxist’s.

  8. Condos states VOTER fraud is exceedingly rare.
    He does not supply numbers

    He makes that statement, because he may not want to remove illegal voters from the lists, because it provides more names to “play”with.

    He could scan his registered voter lists against a Social Security list, or a USPS list, etc., and find out exactly which voters are dead and from out of state, and which of them voted illegally in the VT 2020 election.

    Other states have done so.
    In Nevada there were tens of thousands in 2020.

    These illegal voters should be immediately removed from the VT lists

    The next item is vote COUNTING fraud

    In New Hampshire 4 Republicans were each falsely short-changed by about 300 votes.
    Three of the 4 Rs had much larger vote margins, so the 300 votes did not change results

    However, one Republican won by just 24 votes, so his Democrat opponent decided to challenge.

    The outcome was, 99 votes had been falsely added to the Democrat, so they were taken away, plus the Republican total had been falsely reduced by about 300 votes.

    Instead of losing by 24 votes, the Democrat ended up loosing by 420 votes!!!

    I am sure, that is not the only COUNTING fraud in New Hampshire.
    I am sure such COUNTING frauds also occur in Vermont

    What is Condos going to do about this?

    • Here is an article summarizing many election COUNTING frauds.

      They are much more common than VOTER fraud, especially in Dem/Prog-run cities, which CONTROL the counting from A-to-Z, such as LA, NYC, Philly, Detroit, Baltimore, etc.

      Recently, those cities have been rewarded with hundreds of $billions of COVID RESCUE funds, which they would not have gotten with Trump winning.

      Always follow the money

      Six swing states, out of the blue, decided to SIMULTANEOUSLY stop COUNTING, on election night, to “reassess” the situation?

      My Lord, what else is new?

      COUNTING frauds have FAR MORE impact.

      Yes, Virginia, they actually overturn elections!!!.
      Counting frauds flout/upset the will of the voters!!!

      https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/here-is-a-write-up-about-a-voting-irregularity-that-led-to-many

    • Willem You took the words that I was going to comment on.
      “Condos states VOTER fraud is exceedingly rare. He does not supply numbers”

      He’s a liberal and figures he can settle matters by making a blank statement, “I didn’t see it, because I didn’t look for it and I could care less, we won didn’t we, so I won’t say anything more:.

      It’s like Harry Reid on the Senate floor when Romney was running for Perez. Reid stated lies about Romney’s taxes repeatedly. When wimpy Romney lost, Reid said “we won didn’t we?” Condos is a similar deceptive liar, part of the Socialist controlling machine probably received G Soros money.. Condos is one tooth in the Dem machine wheel of power in VT.

      • Tom,

        Condos, a former salesman, is ready, willing and able to dance to the tune written for him by the Dem/Prog elites. They tell him to jump, he asks how often and how high?

        He knows, the more NAMES on the voter lists, the more names to play with.
        All Secretaries of State know this.

        COUNTING fraud is alive and well in Vermont.

        I arrived early to vote in the 2020 election.
        After I completed my ballot, I went to the counting machine, as usual.

        Two poll workers, a man and a woman, were busy feeding ballots into the machine.
        When one of them saw me, they moved aside with a smile.
        The woman was clutching to her bosom at least 50 more ballots
        I asked her, where do those come from?
        Oh, she said, they are from early voters
        That was at 8:15 AM!!!

        Subsequently, there occurred the most fraudulent vote “COUNTING” ever.

        Had I known THEN, what we all learned later, I would have made a big stink at that time.
        Every time I think of it, I am pi..ed, I missed that opportunity.

        A friend of mine, a former selectman, who was a poll worker for many years, told me stories that would make your blood boil.

        No wonder the Dem/Progs are “winners” every time.

  9. When is VT going to get rid of the loons that are hell bent on the destruction of our state?

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