New Jersey Pledges 14 Electoral Votes To Joe Biden/Kamala Harris

NEW JERSEY - The college that gives no diplomas met in the Garden State Monday and pledged all 14 votes to the president/vice president ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Although the voters cast their ballots five weeks ago, these are the votes that according to the US Constitution, really matter. The will of the voters is reflected in the actions of state electors, the Electoral College. Electors are chosen by political parties at the state level and in some cases are bound by law to vote in a way that is consistent with the results of the popular vote

Across the nation, when all the votes are in, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to have 306 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 needed to elect a president. President Donald Trump is expected to earn 232 votes.

In New Jersey there are 14 electors who convened at 3 p.m. on Assembly Chamber in the Statehouse in Trenton and pledged to Biden and Harris. They are:

• Michael Beson
• Richard Berdnik
• Kelvin Ganges
• Brendan Gill
• Matthew Platkin
• Edward Kologi
• Tammy S. Murphy
• Saily Avelenda
• Francesca Giarratana
• Lynne Hurwitz
• Roberta Karpinecz
• Jill Kotner
• Derya Taskin
• LeRoy Jones

First Lady Tammy Murphy was unanimously elected as president of the electoral college and LeRoy Jones was appointed as secretary.

All but two states the electoral votes are apportioned on a winner-take-all basis, while Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes by congressional district, with two additional votes reserved for the statewide winner.

Why It Is Controversial

The framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College system as a compromise between electing the president by popular vote and having Congress choose. On the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December, electors meet to cast their ballots. Since the establishment of the electoral college system in 1789, there have been more than 150 “faithless” electors, because they did not cast a vote for their party’s chosen candidate.

No faithless electors have ever altered the outcome of an election.

On Monday, The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously upheld laws across the country that remove or punish rogue Electoral College delegates who refuse to cast their votes for the presidential candidate they were pledged to support., according to a report on NPR.

The decision was a loss for "faithless electors," who argued that under the Constitution they have the discretion to decide which candidate to support.

On Jan. 6 of the year following the election, a joint session of Congress is convened to tally and certify the electoral votes. If a presidential candidate has received 270 or more electoral votes, the sitting vice president, acting as president of the Senate, then declares that person to be the president-elect, thus concluding the electoral college process.

The electoral college has drawn fire over the years because there have been times when they have been out of phase with the popular vote. Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Trump all won the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.

This has brought up criticism about the relevance of the electoral college.

This Is 2020

This election year Trump lost the popular vote 74,223,755, or 49.9 percent, to Biden's 81,283,495 or 51.4 percent. But what has made this year's electoral college face more scrutiny is the continued assault by the Trump campaign legal team on the process.

A series of groundless lawsuits were dismissed or declined for lack of standing over the last few weeks as Trump and his allies attempted to alter the result of the election. Last week, New Jersey joined 21 states and territories have come to defense of Pennsylvania in their Supreme Court battle with Texas.

"The people have chosen. These baseless lawsuits and this misinformation campaign must end," said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. "States took steps to ensure their elections could operate fairly, efficiently and safely in the midst of #COVID19 and I'm proud to stand up for those efforts, and our democracy."

The suit claimed that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan compromised the election through last-minute changes to election law. States that joined Texas in the lawsuit include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.

"Election integrity is central to our republic," Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said on Twitter. "And I will defend it at every turn."

New Jersey joined with the District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands Thursday and filed an amici curiae.

This means they are offering the court information or advice regarding questions of law or fact.

"Amici States have a strong interest in the outcome of this case. Specifically, the Amici States have a critical interest in allowing state courts and local actors to interpret and implement state election law, and in ensuring that states retain their sovereign ability to safely and securely accommodate voters in light of emergencies such as COVID-19. Amici States, moreover, have a critical interest in ensuring that their sister states—Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—can give effect to the millions of lawfully cast votes targeted by Texas's lawsuit," the motion reads.

The Supreme Court declined the case.

Officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election and that there is no evidence to indicate that mail-in voting is not secure. The claims made in this multi-state suit were raised repeatedly in cases dismissed in both federal and state court in Pennsylvania.

Due to what the GOP plaintiffs in the case describe as fraud in the four battleground states, they urge in the lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court throw out the election results in those states and instead allow the respective state legislatures to appoint the winner.

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