A Harvard Law professor who is also the leader of the anti-Trump group Electors Trust claims that he knows of at least 20 and as many as 30 Republican electors who plan to violate their electoral duty and withhold their votes for Donald Trump.
Electors Trust will need to convince at least 37 Republican electors to withhold their duty-bound votes to achieve their goal of keeping Donald Trump from reaching the necessary 270 electoral votes to secure the presidency, which would throw the election into the House of Representatives.
The Republicans enjoy a significant majority, 247 to 188, in the House, which sounds like an insurmountable advantage for the Republicans, presuming of course that all of the Republican members of the House can’t be bought. Hell, we can’t even trust the Speaker of the House!
Here is what I don’t understand – why do we need an Electoral College at all? Why aren’t the electoral votes automatically awarded to the candidate who won the popular vote in each respective state? Do we really need electors at all who can be corrupted by lies, pressure, threats, and money? The electors possess the power to deny the people’s will. That is wrong!
According to The Washington Times, state officials scrambled Wednesday to uphold the Electoral College process as a Harvard Law School professor insisted that he was closing in on enough Republican defectors to upend President-elect Donald Trump,
Professor Lawrence Lessig said his group, Electors Trust, and two other organizations advising electors behind the scenes have found 20 to 30 Republicans who are considering withholding their votes for Mr. Trump at the Monday ceremony.
An exodus of 37 electors would put Mr. Trump at 269 electoral votes, one shy of the 270 needed to make his win official, and throw the decision to the Republican-controlled House.
The current number may be higher than 20. “Some tell me that the number is higher than that. It should be more like 30, but I feel confident saying there’s at least 20,” said Mr. Lessig, who was briefly a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
National Republicans aren’t buying his claim, but the revelation that Democratic lawyers are providing legal advice to Republican electors has fueled the turmoil surrounding this year’s Electoral College vote.
In Washington, a federal judge rejected Wednesday a bid by two “faithless electors” — in this case, two electors who would be expected to support Hillary Clinton — for an injunction that would allow them to vote their conscience.
Washington state’s secretary of state spokesman Dave Ammons said any Democratic electors in Washington who bolt from Mrs. Clinton will face the possibility of civil penalties, which would be a first since the law binding electors to the popular vote was passed in 1977.
Another group of more than 50 electors — again, mostly Democrats — led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Christine, a California elector, have signed a letter demanding an intelligence briefing on allegations of Russian interference in the campaign.
Only one member of the Pelosi group, Chris Suprun of Texas, is a Republican.
As a result, it doesn’t matter how the Democrats vote Monday as long as at least 270 Republican electors stand by Mr. Trump.
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore issued a plea for Republican electors to “have a stand-up moment and say, ‘I care about this country.’”
“Hopefully, there is a chapter to be added to John F. Kennedy’s ‘Profiles in Courage’ on Monday,” Mr. Moore said on MSNBC. “We only need 37 more of these electors, and they have to be Republican electors.
In Colorado, Secretary of State Wayne Williams wants to stop the electors before they become faithless. After a judge ruled Tuesday that such electors may be replaced, he began working with the state Democratic Party to line up substitutes.
If any of the nine Democratic electors either declines to take the pledge swearing to follow the popular vote or support Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Williams said, they will “cease to be an elector under the provisions of Colorado law” and will be immediately decertified.
Substitutes provided by the state Democratic Party are scheduled to be on site during the ceremony at the state capitol, he said.
The Democrats are aligned with the Hamilton Electors movement, which seeks to persuade a total of 270 Democratic and Republican electors to join forces and support a consensus candidate in order to keep Mr. Trump out of the White House.
