Reply #64: Supremacy applies to things assigned to the federal goverment

[jberryhill]

However the job of selecting electors is textually committed to the states and their legislatures by the Constitution. Making a supremacy argument there is absurd, because elections are conducted by states in accordance with state laws, and the federal government does not even conduct elections. There is no federal legislation specifying how one gets on the ballot, which is why it is different in every state.

What a state cannot do, is to impose an unconstitutional bar to the ballot.

I don't know whereyou are getting this "old folded up document stuff" since anyone can get a spiffy new one from any state, just like the one which President Obama's campaign not only was happy to provide, but posted on the internet and allowed anyone to come see it (which factcheck took them up on).

This law is a stupid and silly gesture. However, the Constitution requires elections be conducted in accordance with state law - the Constitution could not be any plainer. As long as the state law does not impose an unconstitutional condition, then it is perfectly within the MANDATE of the Constitution that electors are to be chosen by the states in such manner as state legislatures provide.

I guess you didn't have a problem with the Supreme Court stopping the vote count which the Florida courts had ordered in 2000, One of the objections to Bush v Gore was that it was precisely the kind of federal interference with the fact that the Constitution commits selection of electors to the states.