The expert, Roger Magnuson, testified that the United States Constitution gave the legislators a nearly unqualified right to choose its own electors.
Quite apart from the anti-democratic implications of having the legislature usurp the role of the voters, and setting aside the embarrassing fact that Mr Bush's own brother would get embroiled in the process as governor, if the legislature really were to appoint its own electors, then the chances are that a Gore slate might also emerge from the electoral nastiness.
As the Constitution does not mandate any particular legislative scheme for selecting electors, state legislatures are vested with the exclusive power to choose how to allocate its own electors.
If the Florida Supremes had named a Gore slate of electors, the Florida Legislature would have named its own; some electors in other states may then have been seduced into faithlessness; ultimately, the ever-more-angry dispute would have wound up in Congress.
The author of "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present" noticed that I wrote, "If the Florida Supremes had named a Gore slate of electors, the Florida Legislature would have named its own; some electors in other states may then have been seduced into faithlessness".
It was much to the consternation of his own electors that he attacked colonialism in the West Indies and criticized Governor Eyre in particular for his brutality in suppressing a rebellion by blacks in Jamaica.
When Jackson lost the election in 1824 to John Quincy Adams despite winning the popular vote, he never ceased charging fraud and raging against the "cheating and corruption and bribery" of the system, to say nothing of the treachery of Henry Clay, who traded his own electors to Adams for the office of Secretary of State.
Asked if the Florida Legislature might provoke a constitutional crisis if it named its own slate of electors, even if the tallying of ballots was unresolved, Mr. Christopher answered gravely: "That would certainly be a serious mistake on their part.
Indeed, they will probably have to be over well before then, because the Florida legislature is threatening to appoint its own slate of electors if it appears that the legal contests will continue up to that day.
In every state, every party nominates its own group of Electors, i.e. the Republican party nominates a group of Electors, the democratic party nominates a group of Electors, the Green party nominates a group of Electors, and the Libertarian party nominates a group of Electors..
