The Electoral College will meet Monday in each state capitol and the District of Columbia to officially make Donald Trump President-Elect. During the Nov 8 Election, Donald Trump won the popular vote in enough states to win 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 232, well above the 270 vote threshold necessary to become President.
Several self-styled "Hamilton Electors" pledged to Clinton have said that they will defect from the Democratic ticket and vote for a moderate Republican candidate, in hopes of getting at least 38 of their Republican counterparts to do the same. As of this writing, only one Republican elector - Texas elector Chris Suprun, has publicly said that they will not vote for Trump.The consensus candidate appeared to have been Ohio Governor and Republican primary candidate John Kasich, but Gov. Kasich has publicly asked electors to not vote for him.
Faithless electors are rare, in fifty-eight presidential elections there have only been 157, 63 of whom defected from losing Candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 when he died before the electors met, and they have never changed the results of an election. In recent elections, faithless electors have either been protest votes, such as a DC elector abstaining in 2000 in protest of the city's lack of a vote in Congress, or the result of carelessness, like when a Minnesota elector cast a vote for a "John Ewards" in 2004.
Liberal hopes that the Electoral College would revolt and make Hillary Clinton president are likely to be dashed - but as stories of Russian hacking propagate and as Clinton's margin over Trump in the national popular vote approaches three million, it is likely we will see more faithless electors than in any recent election. But even if there are somehow enough defectors to keep Trump from getting to 270, all that it would accomplish is that the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, which would in all likelihood elect Trump anyway.
- Greg.B
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