Dear Editor,
Recently a number of state legislatures have passed legislation that amounts to an end run around the U.S. Constitution or at least around the electoral college that is found within the constitution. These states have passed legislation that would require their electoral votes in a presidential election to go to the candidate who won the total popular vote. If Montana had a law like this in effect during the last presidential election in 2016, all of Montana’s electoral votes would have gone to Hilary Clinton even though Montana voted for Donald Trump.
I think even a lawyer who is not a constitutional scholar can figure out that the actions of these states were blatantly unconstitutional. If in the 2020 election the individual opposing Donald Trump again receives the most popular vote but loses the election based upon the electoral college vote as set out in the Constitution , but is declared the winner because of the legislation passed by those states trying to invalidate the electoral college, I believe a true constitutional crisis will have occurred! I believe that Donald Trump would be justified in declaring martial law just as Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War.
Dr. W. David
Herbert ESQ
Billings, MT
