<x-flowed>If Nader named the same slate of electors as Kerry, knowing those individuals had already pledged to support Kerry, would they have to likewise pledge to support Nader?  That is, as an independent candidate, could Nader nominate the same electors as Kerry without requiring a pledge of fidelity?  Obviously, this would make a vote for Nader (and thus the Kerry-committed electors) more nakedly symbolic, but it might resolve the moral issue.

Ethan Fletcher
1L
Yale Law School



At 07:30 AM 5/5/2004 -0700, ban@richardwinger.com wrote:

I am trying to get a letter published in the NY Times,
with this text, in response to Professor Bruce
Ackerman's "2-for-1 voting" op-ed of today.


> Bruce Ackerman's "2-for-1 Voting" (NY Times of May
> 5)
> says that the 538 Democratic candidates for
> presidential elector this year should pledge to vote
> for John Kerry for president, and that these 538
> individuals should also simultaneously pledge to
> vote
> for Ralph Nader for president.  The suggestion is
> absurd and immoral on its face.  Honorable people do
> not make pledges that they do not, and cannot,
> intend
> to keep.  It is impossible for one presidential
> elector to vote for two different individuals for
> president.  No state elections officials would
> accept
> such declarations, and no court would force them to
> do
> so.
>
> Ackerman's column contains a grain of truth.
> Approximately half the states have no legal barrier
> to
> two different political parties jointly nominating
> the
> same slate of presidential elector candidates (it
> isn't possible to specify an exact number of states,
> because of technicalities such as whether each of
> the
> two parties are qualified, etc.).  Thus, two
> different
> political parties can jointly nominate the same
> presidential candidate, as was done by the
> Democratic
> and Peoples Parties in 1896.  But that is not the
> same
> thing as individual candidates for presidential
> elector claiming falsely that they will vote for two
> different individuals for president.





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