Every four years, Americans rediscover the 538-member Electoral College, the convoluted mechanism that the Constitution ( and ), , and prescribe for selecting the president. Electors rarely appear on ballots, but when voters pull the lever for president and vice president, they are actually voting to authorize competing slates of electors who will cast the official votes at a later date. The founders envisioned electors as free agents, selected by the voters to be “men most capable of analyzing” presidential candidates. Over the years most have forgotten that electors are actual people, and...…Every four years, Americans rediscover the 538-member Electoral College, the convoluted mechanism that the Constitution ( and ), , and prescribe for selecting the president. Electors rarely appear on ballots, but when voters pull the lever for president and vice president, they are actually voting to authorize competing slates of electors who will cast the official votes at a later date. The founders envisioned electors as free agents, selected by the voters to be “men most capable of analyzing” presidential candidates. Over the years most have forgotten that electors are actual people, and...WW…

Senate Republicans’ decision to vote on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor reflects individual and collective cost-benefit calculations of seating a rock-ribbed conservative in what may be the Trump administration’s waning days. As a fig leaf to obscure the hypocrisy of voting on President Trump’s election-year nominee after refusing to vote on President Obama’s in early 2016, Republicans have claimed an historical norm that doesn’t exist.The GOP Senate’s initial claimIn March 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denying a vote on Obama’s nomination of DC Circuit Court Judge...…Senate Republicans’ decision to vote on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor reflects individual and collective cost-benefit calculations of seating a rock-ribbed conservative in what may be the Trump administration’s waning days. As a fig leaf to obscure the hypocrisy of voting on President Trump’s election-year nominee after refusing to vote on President Obama’s in early 2016, Republicans have claimed an historical norm that doesn’t exist.The GOP Senate’s initial claimIn March 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denying a vote on Obama’s nomination of DC Circuit Court Judge...WW…