Seven electors voted contrary to expectations and three more electors attempted to cast faithless votes.
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While many see presidential electors as unimportant vestigial organs, electors do not see themselves that way.
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Washington state, which had 22019 faithless electors this year, levies a $1,000 fine for faithless electors.
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The electors, who have dubbed themselves the "Hamilton Electors," are publicly made up entirely of Democrats.
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No electors in 2008 were moved by the birther campaign to go rogue and it is unlikely the Hamilton electors will entice Republican electors to stop Trump in the Electoral College.
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There has been much discussion about faithless electors abandoning their traditional role, Hamilton Electors and what happened in the past when electors have been thrown out during ballot counting by the House and Senate, such as in 22019, when Louisiana and Arkansas' electors were thrown out.
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Electors who have voted against the people's decision or abstained from voting are known as faithless electors.
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Instead, each state appoints presidential electors, with more populous states allotted more electors than less populous states.
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A group of Hamilton electors has committed itself to preventing a Trump presidency when electors convene December 19.
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A group called the "Hamilton Electors" was formed to encourage and support electors voting against the Republican nominee.
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Could the "Hamilton electors," a group of electors who have sworn not to vote for Trump, be this solution?
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The president-elect has 36 more electors than he needs to be the next president with 306 committed electors.
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Efforts among the self-proclaimed "Hamilton Electors" to convince Republican electors to defect from Trump have so far fizzled.
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Trump won the popular vote in states that carried 306 electors, while Clinton won states that include 232 electors.
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In his book Presidential Electors and the Electoral College: An Examination of Lobbying, Wavering Electors, and Campaigns for Faithless Votes, Alexander surveys presidential electors and finds that more than one in 10 considered changing their vote.
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The Constitution requires that electors pick the President, but it doesn't say too much about how the electors are chosen.
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About 30 states require presidential electors to vote for the popular vote winner, and electors almost always do so anyway.
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According to state law, electors and alternate electors must be nominated at an official state convention, the Star Tribune said.
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" Madison viewed the electors through a dual lens: He was happy that electors had been voting in accordance with state popular vote outcomes, noting approvingly in 1826 that electors were "generally the mere mouths of their constituents.
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With a total of at least seven faithless votes cast — five by Democratic electors and two by Republican electors — the 2016 Electoral College broke a historical record set in 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors rejected James Madison.
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The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
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Just 17% of electors from my surveys would support an amendment to tabulate votes automatically, thereby removing the independence of electors.
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This is why efforts to sway George W. Bush electors in 85033 or Donald Trump electors in 2016 were remarkably unsuccessful.
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Although so-called faithless electors rarely occur, including ninein the last 17 elections, a surprising number of electors consider doing so.
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The electors were challenged but, in the end, only seven proved "faithless" and the majority of them were actually Clinton electors.
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This is the pitch from a group of electors calling themselves Hamilton Electors, in reference to the wildly popular Broadway musical.
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Lessig's anti-Trump group, Electors Trust, has been offering pro bono legal counsel to Republican electors who are considering rebelling against Trump.
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Will electors begin voting at random, or can we still count on electors to vote in accordance with their own states' outcomes?
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Larry Lessig has volunteered to defend faithless electors who violate state laws in court and claims that 20 electors are considering defecting.
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But when the electors gathered across the country Monday, this plot backfired embarrassingly — more electors defected from Hillary Clinton than from Trump.
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In many states, electors are not legally bound to vote for any candidate, and "faithless electors" have occasionally cast write-in ballots.
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In fact, those electors choosing to vote contrary to expectations have come to be known as "faithless electors," hardly a term of endearment.
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The electors pledged to Clinton are chosen by state Democratic parties, and the electors pledged to Trump are chosen by state Republican parties.
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Ultimately, only two Republican electors — both in Texas — defected while five Democrat electors did in an effort to rally around an alternative candidate.
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However, Trump won 304 electoral college votes, not 306 — the 306 number is a reference to the number of pledged electors the president won, but two of those electors became "faithless electors" and did not vote for the candidate that won their states.
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In my surveys of electors, I have found around 21826% of electors serving in the past three election cycles considered voting contrary to expectations.
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The Electoral College is comprised of 20123 electors, which equals the 435 Representatives, 100 Senators and three electors given to the District of Columbia.
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Each state gets the same number of electors as it has Congressmen and Senators -- and the bigger the state, the more electors it has.
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A group of electors in Colorado and Washington state is considering trying to convince Republican electors to switch their vote from Trump to Kasich.
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In 2628, nearly 28503 percent of Republican electors were contacted to change their votes and a majority of all electors were lobbied in 22019.
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Political parties began to nominate slates of electors in each state — electors they believed could be counted on to vote for the presidential nominee.
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Many states have laws requiring electors to pledge that they will support the winner of the state's popular vote, but electors occasionally go rogue.
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Democratic electors would have a better chance of blocking Trump if they joined 38 GOP electors in supporting a Republican alternative, like Ohio Gov.
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Initially, some state legislators picked the electors themselves, while other states had some form of statewide vote in which the electors themselves would be candidates.
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In all, there were 10 faithless electors in 2016, including a fourth in Washington, a Democratic elector in Hawaii and two Republican electors in Texas.
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Wyoming, for example, has three presidential electors, or one per 192,000 population; California, by contrast, has 55 presidential electors, or only one per 719,000 population.
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Funnily enough, the Hamilton Electors were hoping that tensions from the Republican primaries would remain and drive a significant number of electors to abandon Trump.
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Along the same lines, the states have no constitutional power to "bind" the votes of electors to any candidate or political party; they only have the power, under Article II, to determine how those electors are chosen (and every state legislature has mandated that electors are chosen by popular vote – even if they obscure the fact that voters are voting for electors, not presidential candidates).
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Baca was a member of the "Hamilton Electors," a group of mostly Democratic electors who hoped to spoil President-elect Trump's chances at the Electoral College.
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Although electors have largely become rubber stamps, Federalist 68 strongly advocates that electors were meant to serve as a final check in the presidential selection process.
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There have been cases before of electors breaking from their state's popular vote tallies before -- so-called "faithless electors" -- but they have been scattered and unorganized.
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Even in the other 31 states, laws saying that electors should vote for the candidate who wins the most votes in their state are probably unconstitutional and certainly won't apply to the Democratic electors if the candidate herself frees her electors from having to vote for her.
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Despite last-ditch efforts to persuade electors to vote down Trump, just two of the 22016 Republican electors cast a ballot against the president-elect, Politico reported.
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That's why California, with a population of almost 39 million, has only 55 electors, while Arizona's population of almost 163 million has disproportionate sway with 11 electors.
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The winner-take-all system rounds up from 85033 percent to all of the electors of a state, and rounds down from 49 percent to zero electors.
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Under an unlikely scenario chronicled by the New York Post, electors could become so-called "faithless electors," declining to vote for the candidate to whom they're bound.
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So if a majority of voters in New York elect the Democratic slate of electors, those electors will almost certainly cast their 29 electoral votes for Clinton.
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This year, members of a group calling itself The Electors Trust, including Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, say they've been contacted by dozens of electors seeking legal advice.
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The two Democratic electors hope to persuade Republican electors in other states to vote for a third-party candidate to keep Trump from receiving the necessary 270 votes.
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Because a state can choose how it selects its electors, New York could simply pass a law requiring its electors to be from New Jersey, Connecticut or wherever.
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Electors were surprisingly open to arguments to switch, though our central message (that electors should support the winner of the national popular vote) was not their highest priority.
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Thirty-seven of Trump's pledged 306 electors would have had to vote against him, becoming so-called "faithless electors," to keep him under the 270 threshold to become President.
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The 'faithless' electors My studies of presidential electors finds that most believe they should have the independence to vote as they wish and a surprisingly large number consider defecting.
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The insurgent Republican electors should collectively decide whom they will vote for, armed with the knowledge that 22019 Democratic electors will join them and vote for the same Republican.
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A significant audience for potential defections existed in the Electoral College as 8 percent of Democratic electors and nearly 20 percent of Republican electors considered voting faithlessly in 85033.
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However, the electors have appealed, and the Independence Institute's brief filed with the appeals court shows the Twelfth Amendment did not take away electors' right to vote their conscience.
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Some electors have called for an intelligence briefing before they make the results official on December 31 (which Podesta supports) but only one of those electors is a Republican.
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If a majority of people in California vote for the Democratic slate of electors, those electors have all pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton, and they almost always do.
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Despite media coverage, social media chatter and announcements from a handful of electors who have made their protest votes public, it's unlikely that electors will defect in significant numbers.
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Only two GOP electors — both from Texas — defected.
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Then, two Democratic electors launched the "Hamilton Electors" movement to plead with members of the electoral college to defy their state's popular vote and rally around an alternative Republican candidate.
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Suprun has claimed other GOP electors are planning not to vote for Trump either, but virtually all GOP electors contacted by The Hill have said they would vote for Trump.
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That elector was not affiliated with the Democratic group known as the Hamilton Electors, which lobbied Republican electors to defect from Trump and cast their votes for an alternative candidate.
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The party had until Monday to submit the names of 10 electors and 10 alternate electors -- the people who will officially cast Minnesota's votes for president -- to the Secretary of State.
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Prominent Harvard law professor Larry Lessig announced a new effort Monday which he calls the "The Electors Trust" that will counsel electors who wish to defect and potentially help them coordinate.
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A group of Democratic electors is demanding intelligence briefings and asking Republican electors to select a different candidate, even voicing a willingness to combine their votes in support of a Republican.
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Last week, however, Clinton's top campaign adviser John Podesta supported a separate push by 80 electors — all but one Democratic — to demand an intelligence briefing for electors ahead of Monday's vote.
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If 19693 Trump electors and all Clinton electors change their votes and rally behind another candidate — even one not elected by their party's primary — he or she would assume the presidency.
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Two Democratic electors in Colorado and Washington state, where Clinton won the electoral votes and electors are obligated under state law to vote for her, have launched their own movement that they've dubbed "Moral Electors" to achieve the same result — or more likely throw the decision to the House of Representatives as happened in 1824.
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Let's call electors who refuse to rubber-stamp the popular vote conscientious electors, and let's give them the resources and the protection to investigate and deliberate — in short, to do their jobs.
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The president-elect sealed his victory Monday when Electoral College members across the nation voted to affirm him, despite a push from liberal electors attempting to convince Republican electors to abandon him.
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There is no "disenfranchisement" of voters when electors vote, because there is no "right to vote" for president under our Constitution – only a right to vote for electors (under the 14th Amendment).
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This is because of its all-or-nothing approach to granting electors: If a candidate wins a majority in a state, he or she will win all the electors in the state.
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The number of electors each state has is equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress — 538 in total, with those extra three electors coming from the District of Columbia.
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"Our goal is to let the electors exercise their judgment, and what we believe is at least 37 electors will make the judgment not to support Donald Trump," Lessig told MSNBC this week.
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Some electors occasionally go rogue — a move that renders them a "faithless elector," though many states have laws requiring electors to pledge that they will support the winner of the state's popular vote.
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It just says that a state's electors -- those representatives to the Electoral College -- will do it on your state's behalf...and that the state can basically choose any means of allocating those electors.
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Representative Don Beyer, Democrat of Virginia, talks about his call to delay the vote until information on the interference can be given to electors; Christine Pelosi and Clay Pell, Democratic electors, join in.
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Hollywood liberals cut an ad urging electors to vote their "conscience," and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta wants the electors to receive intelligence briefings about Russian cyberattacks on him and other senior Democrats.
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Instead, electors gather in each state -- usually in the Capitol.
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Under federal law, though, electors must gather on December 19.
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Trump was put over the top by electors in Texas.
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How many faithless electors have there been in American history?
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The manner of choosing electors was left to state legislatures.
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The state then chose a new slate of presidential electors.
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She would need 38 "faithless electors" to win this game.
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There is little to stop electors from asserting their independence.
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Electors must make their decision on imperfect and incomplete information.
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Still, it is unlikely electors will defect in significant numbers.
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In 19 states, electors can vote for whomever they want.
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Greater disclosure to electors, the public and Congress before Dec.
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She says electors have every right to vote their conscience.
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Former President Bill Clinton, above, was one of the electors.
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Newspapers reported that electors began receiving a flood of communication.
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The 23rd Amendment gave electors to the District of Columbia.
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Presidents, of course, are selected by electors chosen by voters.
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The problem is, of course, that electors are just people.
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There will be no intelligence briefings for the electors either.
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As now, the electors were chosen within their individual states.
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The poll finds more support among Democrats for unbound electors.
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With fifteen electors, Tennessee had fifteen votes at the Convention.
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In the unlikely event that the Hamilton Electors succeed in stopping Trump, you can be sure that Democrats won't back a reform binding electors unless the reform also addressed other issues with the system.
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Alternatively, and just as theoretically, the defeated candidate could assert that the electors in a given state are unjust and ask that state's legislature to appoint a new slate of electors, Mr. Hasen said.
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The electors' lawsuit is part of a broader strategy to undermine 28 similar elector "binding" laws across the country, including several in states where Republican electors say they're legally bound to support Donald Trump.
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It says, "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…" State legislatures — and only state legislatures — are empowered to choose the method of awarding electors.
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Larry Lessig, an attorney for the electors in Washington, wrote in court papers that a swing by 10 electors would have been enough to alter the results in five of 58 previous presidential races.
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The state's legislation would only take effect if enough other states sign on to secure the cumulative 270 electors needed to elect a president, and Colorado's votes raise the current total to 181 electors.
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There is nothing in the federal constitution that requires electors to honor that pledge, but many states have enacted laws that would punish so-called "faithless electors" who go against the outcome of the vote.
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Do Republican electors, and Republican politicians, want their party to be aligned with Assange and their electors to be uninterested in whether Russian dictator Vladimir Putin engaged in criminal espionage to help Trump become president?
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In spite of this, my research of presidential electors has found that while few electors actually go rogue, around 85033 percent of those serving in the past three election cycles considered voting contrary to expectations.
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A significant group of electoral college electors has written to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper requesting that he provide electors crucial information about the influence of Russia on the recently concluded elections before Dec.
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Presidential electors — and particularly Republican electors, who are bound by tradition and often state law to support Mr. Trump — were inundated with phone calls, emails and even threats demanding that they vote for someone else.
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Those who do defect come to be known as "faithless" electors.
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In past elections, few have acted as so-called "faithless" electors.
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The 28503th Circuit disagreed, holding that electors can vote their conscience.
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Presidential electors are elected officials, just as members of Congress are.
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In 56 presidential elections, "we haven't needed" electors to exercise "judgment".
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And how should these electors vote in such an emergency situation?
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Congress would need to specify what "proportionality" means when allocating electors.
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Clinton got 227 votes after five Democratic electors voted for alternatives.
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Every state has laws allowing the people to choose its electors.
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The electors will meet in December to formally choose the president.
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Bucking their jurisdiction's votes could also have consequences for faithless electors.
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"I stand behind Hamilton electors," Guerra said during a press conference.
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Ten electors originally signed the letter when it was published Monday.
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Elsewhere, Democratic electors who sought to vote for someone besides Mrs.
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Usually these electors select the candidate you'd expect them to select.
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Nonetheless, the campaign to lobby the electors is in full swing.
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Despite the uphill battle, I support efforts to sway the electors.
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The electors are free, under the Constitution, to determine the president.
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Several faithless electors have used their position to pursue quixotic protests.
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To this day, states still determine how their electors are selected.
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But for now, the presidency is still decided by 538 electors.
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Two Democratic electors filed a lawsuit aiming to reverse the law.
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Move to a system in which there are no individual electors.
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The 23rd Amendment gave electors to the District of Columbia. 17.
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But two of Mr. Trump's pledged electors and five of Mrs.
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Electors rejecting their party's candidate have been rare in American history.
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Impassioned citizens have been pleading with electors to vote against Mr. Trump; law professors have argued that winner-take-all laws for electoral votes are unconstitutional; a small group, the Hamilton Electors, is attempting to free electors to vote their consciences; and a new theory has arisen that there is legal precedent for courts to give the election to Mrs.
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Mr Lessig and his political allies may not view elections to come as appropriate times for electors to rebel, and they may have excellent reasons for electors to stay even-tempered and dutiful in those contests.
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Raising awareness about the Electoral College, especially the role of actual electors in casting votes for president and the ability of states to determine how these electors are selected, is a critical first step to reform.
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"State officials need to think hard and think twice about the constitutionality of interfering with the electors' votes once that process begins," said Jason Wesoky, a lawyer for the two Colorado electors who filed the lawsuit.
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Trump's defeat of Hillary Clinton follows a desperate and unprecedented attempt by Democratic electors to foment a revolt by convincing Republican electors to vote against him, an effort that collapsed with little to show for it.
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Meanwhile, the three Powell votes were cast as part of an effort from a group called the Hamilton Electors to throw their support to a moderate Republican, in hopes that some Trump-pledged electors would follow.
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Courts in Colorado and Washington state have rejected pleas from electors to be released from requirements to vote as their states did, although the electors in Colorado appealed the lower court ruling, according to The Associated Press.
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"As electors come forward, and I have had conversations with other Republican electors in particular, I think we will start discussing names specifically and see who meets the test that we could all get behind," Suprun said.
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With at least six electors already vowing to become "faithless," the defection could be the most significant since 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors refused to vote for James Madison, choosing vice presidential candidate George Clinton instead.
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Politico reports that the self-proclaimed "Hamilton Electors," who are at least publicly made up entirely of Democrats, see the former Republican primary candidate as the leading compromise pick for convincing Republican electors to join their cause.
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These electors almost always follow the will of the voters who selected them, but there are sometimes exceptions—a couple of electors in Washington State say they may not support Clinton even if she carries the state.
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Leaders of groups that were lobbying the electors had privately believed they had a chance to persuade enough Republican electors to defect, denying him an Electoral College majority and throwing the election to the House of Representatives.
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"The very notion of two Colorado electors ignoring Colorado's popular vote in an effort to sell their vote to electors in other states is odious to everything we hold dear about the right to vote," Williams said.
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Leaders of groups that were lobbying the electors had privately believed they had a chance to sway enough Republican electors to defect, denying him an Electoral College majority and throwing the election to the House of Representatives.
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Those Washington electors also picked a mixed bag for the vice presidency.
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Typically, the electors follow the will of the people in their state.
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The people elect the electors, who elect the president and vice president.
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Moreover, approximately 10% of electors from my past surveys consider going rogue.
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His announcement makes the Hamilton electors' lobbying campaign that much more interesting.
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A petition aimed at "conscientious electors" has garnered nearly 5 million signatures.
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First, let's retire the nomenclature of "faithless electors" once and for all.
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Electors typically want to vote as they have been asked to vote.
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We were waiting for a pledge from one of the alternate electors.
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Most of these states created these laws after electors cast faithless ballots.
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Many electors believe they should serve as a check in the system.
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Article II gives the states the power to determine the electors that
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Some states also have laws against electors voting against their jurisdiction's pick.
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However, it is inexcusable that most GOP electors have not joined them.
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"You, Electors, possess the power to prevent this outcome," the ad reads.
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The effort to rally so-called "Hamilton Electors" faces an uphill battle.
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Dissatisfaction with the party's nominee is a primary reason electors consider defection.
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This would seem to be the case among this year's faithless electors.
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Indeed, in the early republic, state legislatures often chose presidential electors directly.
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Recall that our presidential elections are really 50 state elections for electors.
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Electors revealed they were contacted by those questioning the president-elect's nationality.
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And on Election Day, we're electing the electors who elect the president.
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Fifty percent of electors in 2012 were contacted to change their votes.
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One of those electors is Chris Suprun, a Republican elector from Texas.
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And there's a history of rogue, faithless, or just plain incompetent electors.
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Those electors almost always end up voting the way they're expected to.
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But by late Monday, only a handful of electors had broken ranks.
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The state's other two Democratic electors were expected to support Mrs. Clinton.
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Colorado is appealing a circuit court ruling that sided with the electors.
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But let's say that no one wins a majority of the electors.
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Both vowed they would encourage GOP electors to write-in either Gov.
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Do presidential electors have an obligation to ratify their state's popular vote?
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Sean Parnell, Jacqueline Tupou, and Carolyn Leman — officially becomes Alaska's three electors.
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The second-most came in 1808, when six electors rejected James Madison.
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Of course, the electors could also vote as intended and elect Trump.
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Those state electors are chosen by, and loyal to, the respective parties.
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Sean Parnell, Jacqueline Tupou, and Carolyn Leman — officially became Alaska's three electors.
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The last record for electors defecting against a living candidate was set in 1808 with six — although 63 Democratic electors in 23 did not vote for their party's nominee Horace Greeley because he died after the general election.
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No, the standard story is that the electors were wise elders making choices instead of the citizenry, but from the beginning most electors were nondescript potted plants who simply ratified the choice made by voters on Election Day.
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Additionally, at least three electors have pledged to not vote for Trump and to seek a "reasonable Republican alternative for president through Electoral College," according to a statement Wednesday from a group called the Hamilton Electors, which represents them.
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Either you embrace the rules as they are written in the Constitution, in which case you must accept that electors are technically independent — or you impose some extraconstitutional norms of democracy, in which case why stop at faithless electors?
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But, alternatively, you also look at something like Democrats pushing for faceless electors.
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Nearly always, electors follow the will of the people (more on this below).
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"We were shopping -- not shopping, excuse me -- looking around for electors," Dole said.
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Nonetheless, many electors have subscribed to the Hamiltonian vision throughout this year's campaign.
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For instance, the popular vote compact does not do away with faithless electors.
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But in a better system, I doubt anyone would want free-agent electors.
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The other women look like they're prepared to write impassioned letters to electors.
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The Electoral College – which was ratified in 1804 – is comprised of 538 electors.
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A handful of states try and discourage faithless electors by criminalizing the act.
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He said the "faithless electors" haven't selected an alternative yet, after Ohio Gov.
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John Kasich told electors earlier this week not to write his name down.
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Only two Trump electors defected, leaving Trump with a comfortable 21625-vote cushion.
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The electors of the state meet separately, at their respective statehouses, on Dec.
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So what would actually happen if electors decided to go the other way?
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Electors have already talked about changing votes to Mitt Romney or John Kasich.
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The popular votes then funnel to committed Electoral College electors like Ms. Ingram.
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Some even argued electors were required to vote according to their best judgment.
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In that case, most electors voted for other presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
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However state laws requiring electors to follow the statewide vote invalidated both efforts.
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If this were their purpose there would have been no electors at all.
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Those 16 votes will all be cast by actual people — the state's electors.
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And fourth, there's the possibility for those electors themselves to hijack the outcome.
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Many here said they had never before attended a meeting of the electors.
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Many states have laws "binding" electors to the results of the statewide vote.
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Just two Republican electors defected, while the other five voted against Hillary Clinton.
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Presidential electors in each state must "transmit" their votes to the nation's capital.
|
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Nonetheless, 538 electors will ultimately pick the next president of the United States.
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Individuals who serve as Electoral College electors - typically party loyalists - cast these votes.
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The District of Columbia, which is not a state, is allotted three electors.
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Didn't the founders intend electors to be faithful above all to the country?
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They almost certainly imagined a system in which electors would exercise deliberative judgment.
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Indeed, the framers specifically empowered states to choose the method of appointing electors.
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Another 71 electors have changed their votes after the death of a candidate.
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Only 82 electors in U.S. history have voted against their state's popular vote.
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They choose a slate of electors who in turn voted for the candidates.
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Clinton and any third person chosen by the greatest number of faithless electors.
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Maine and Nebraska opt to proportionally split their electors based on the vote.
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So it's not as if one or two electors could make the difference.
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That could make defying the voters effectively impossible for electors in some states.
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The gatherings will remove the last bit of drama from 2016's unprecedented election season -- and post-election efforts to persuade Republican electors to vote against Trump, in some cases in violation of state laws requiring electors to support the victor.
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It's complicated, so stay with us: The Electoral College is a group of people appointed by each party The total number of electors is equal to the number of members in Congress: 203 Each state gets electors based on its population.
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If presidential electors not respecting a state's popular, pledged vote have been called 'faithless electors' — a term coined decades before this year's contest — perhaps those unwilling to abide by the results of the electoral vote should be called 'faithless citizens.
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Those electors are, indeed, "expected" to take into account the results of that November "popular" vote when they make their decisions in December, as most of them have done since states began allowing voters to choose the electors in the 85033s.
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Hamilton in Federalist 68 emphasized in his time, as a group of electors have now emphasized in ours, that electors should have the "information" about hostile foreign influence to exercise their "discernment" in deciding who will be America's commander in chief.
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In Hawaii, one of the state's four Democratic electors cast a ballot for Sanders in defiance of state law binding electors to the state's Election Day outcome, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times and Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspapers.
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"We are glad the Supreme Court has recognized the paramount importance of clearly determining the rules of the road for presidential electors for the upcoming election and all future elections," added Lawrence Lessig, the famed Harvard Law professor representing the electors.
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To give encouragement, and legal support, the Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig and the law firm Durie Tangri have teamed up to start what they are calling the Electors Trust, offering free counsel to other electors pondering Mr. Suprun's route.
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In about half the states, electors are bound by law to keep these pledges.
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Rather, each of us selects state electors who, in turn, choose the next President.
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The state eventually passed a law requiring electors' votes to be cast in public.
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For instance, nearly 1 in 5 Republican electors in 2008 considered casting faithless ballots.
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Democrat electors, in particular, could cast faithless votes to draw attention to this issue.
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It is highly unlikely we will see any Republican electors vote for Hillary Clinton.
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There was a push to turn GOP electors against him, but that went nowhere.
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We are right now seeing an unprecedented systematic effort to persuade electors to switch.
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As a matter of history, the "problem" of faithless electors has been mostly theoretical.
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Should presidential electors vote lock-step for a candidate whose health has been compromised?
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They are known as the cardinal electors, and their number is limited to 120.
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Some electors have said they do not intend to cast their votes for him.
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Today, there are 18270 electors from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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The electoral college has 538 electors and 270 are needed to win the presidency.
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Four years ago, I argued that rogue electors threaten the integrity of presidential elections.
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In 2012, only 17% of electors supported an amendment to tabulate their votes automatically.
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The seven faithless electors roughly translates to the disenfranchisement of over 6900 million votes.
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California netted Clinton 55 electors, whereas the four Midwestern states gave 64 to Trump.
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"The bipartisan electors' letter raises very grave issues involving our national security," Podesta said.
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In 2008, however, 91 percent of Democratic electors were lobbied to change their votes!
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This was puzzling given Obama's convincing victory, until I read comments from electors themselves.
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This year, those electors will meet in state capitols across the country on Dec.
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Greeley had died after the election but before the presidential electors convened to vote.
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Instead, they will vote to elect specific people, known as "electors" to the college.
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My studies have revealed intense lobbying campaigns to get electors to change their votes.
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Thousands are expected to protest around the country today as electors cast their votes.
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And some electors did break with how their state voted, albeit in unexpected ways.
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States award electors based on the outcome of the popular vote in the state.
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Today, the electors gathered at state capitols around the nation to cast their ballots.
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Republican Electors, there's perhaps never been a more burning call for justice in America.
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Tennessee's electors were bound by state law to vote for the winning presidential candidate.
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The states, based on a manner their legislature shall direct, will select their electors.
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But it has long been at least theoretically possible for electors to go rogue.
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Furthermore, there are still 21 states that haven't even tried to bind their electors.
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A state must appoint electors, but once that happens, Lessig argues, its power ends.
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Faithless electors could change the outcome of presidential elections with thinner Electoral College margins.
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Each state has a nearly unchecked power to choose presidential electors however it wishes.
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This is evidenced by the positive response among Democratic electors after the 2016 election.
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Democrats were unable to persuade enough electors to withhold their support for Mr. Trump.
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The nation's electors gather today to cast their ballots for president and vice president.
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Still, in our nation's history, 99 percent of electors have stuck by the nominee.
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Though seven electors defected, they chose someone other than Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton.
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Thirty-seven electors would have to desert Trump to deprive him of his majority.
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But he did win the Electoral College, and the electors have yet to vote.
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The Constitution does not vest any power in electors other than a single vote.
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Low probability aside, one of three scenarios could play out if enough electors defect.
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Then, electors would be chosen, and the electoral college could proceed as usual, right?
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Arguably, a more democratic system would be for each state to allocate electors on the basis of the popular vote in the state, so a candidate who gets 50.7 percent of Florida's two-party presidential vote would get 15 of Florida's 29 electors.
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A better system, the plaintiffs contend, would be to have each state allocate electors in proportion to the popular vote in the state: a candidate that gets 2628/28503 of the vote in the state should get 22019/3 of the electors.
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Last May, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the state had the power to impose a $1,000 fine on its four faithless electors, on the ground that the Constitution gives the states total authority to decide how to appoint their electors.
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After a fraught election, some have called on electors to vote against their state results.
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When people vote for president, they are really choosing the electors from the political parties.
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And electors in three states went to court seeking authority to vote as they please.
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Electors met on Monday to vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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Although a long shot, it would appear that an audience among some Republican electors exists.
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Podesta has called for the electors to be briefed about the hacking before they vote.
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Then, it was about persuading electors not to vote for Trump in the Electoral College.
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Instead, some 14,000 electors, picked on the basis of clan, voted in members of parliament.
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The District of Columbia was granted three electors by the 23rd Amendment, the minimum number.
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Each party with a candidate on the presidential ballot puts forth a slate of electors.
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One way to do so would be to encourage a revolt among Republican presidential electors.
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Suprun would need to sway another 36 Republican electors in order to affect the outcome.
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Federal law requires states to resolve disputes over the appointment of electors by Dec. 13.
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However, the two parties disputed the legitimacy of 20 additional electors from four different states.
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Whether Congress chooses to take up the issue of faithless electors when they convene Jan.
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Twenty-nine states go as far as banning electors from voting against their pledged candidate.
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Finally, on Monday, at least 270 electors can vote for someone besides Trump as president.
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The following month those chosen as electors cast formal ballots for president and vice president.
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Most constitutional experts agree that the American founders intended the electors to have this right.
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And technically he is not; the electors in the respective states have not convened. Dec.
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They have recognized that the decision best remains with the voters, presidential electors, and Congress.
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Since the Electoral College was found in 1787, just 157 people have been faithless electors.
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As one of the seven so-called "faithless electors" who, in the words of Prof.
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My research has uncovered a surprisingly large number of electors who consider casting faithless votes.
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Many electors are strong party members, but may not support their party's nominee (like Vu).
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In Philadelphia, the 20 GOP electors will be escorted by police forces for their safety.
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Thirty-seven electors would have needed to defect from Trump to endanger him from winning.
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But in the system we have today, the electors are chosen to be rubber stamps.
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Eventually, many states even passed laws requiring electors to vote for their party's presidential nominee.
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There is simply no constitutional provision requiring New York electors to be from New York.
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In Texas, two Republican electors cast protest votes, one each for Ron Paul and Gov.
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The respective state popular vote has, since the 19th century, dictated the award of electors.
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She could've won California by three votes and still picked up the state's 55 electors.
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Online systems again enable activists to contact electors to lobby them to change their votes.
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Including the 14 electors who abstained in the election, only 1163 votes were considered valid.
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But only one of those 306 electors pledged to him has publicly said he's revolting.
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And the vast majority of electors over the past two centuries have done just that.
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What states can do Remember how states are free to choose electors as they wish?
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Pope Benedict XVI, a conservative who retired in 2013, named 47 of the remaining electors.
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At issue in the cases are laws requiring that electors follow through on those pledges.
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Those cases challenge laws seeking to keep electors from going against the wishes of voters.
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Recent court decisions have come to opposite conclusions about whether electors may disregard their pledges.
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Currently, all 50 states follow a norm where electors are chosen by a popular election.
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Nothing in the Constitution, or in federal law, binds electors to vote a particular way.
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Virtually all Republican electors reached by The Hill said they will vote enthusiastically for Trump.
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Only 22019 electors in history have voted against their state's popular vote for personal reasons.
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At least 40 of the 538 electors have requested an intelligence briefing before the Dec.
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Presidential electors are bound by tradition and often state law to support their party's candidates.
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The Electoral College has to be abolished, or at the very least the electors themselves.
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It's possible that some states would choose to allocate their electors in a proportional fashion.
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This process repeated itself across the country, resulting in the selection of the 538 electors.
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On December 19, the electors will cast their votes for president in their respective states.
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Electors have reported being barraged with thousands of emails, telephone calls, and even death threats.
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But state laws limiting the ability of electors to change their votes complicate the decision.
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Even if electors force a tie, the House would likely choose to elect Trump again.
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When you vote, you're actually voting for electors, who in turn vote for a president.
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Just or not, the electors have the ability to install the candidate of their choosing.
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And early on, in almost every place, popular elections for presidential electors became the norm.
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"I don't think this year is a normal year, it's been a very divisive campaign and I'm reaching out to Republican electors, Democratic electors, searching for a unity Hamilton candidate to really unite this country," Micheal Baca, a Colorado elector, told CNN's Carol Costello Wednesday.
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Though the letter doesn't explicitly endorse a separate effort by electors in Colorado, Washington and California to stop Trump from winning the presidency, it represents the latest effort by Democratic electors to look to the Electoral College as a possible bulwark against a Trump presidency.
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Actor Martin Sheen and other celebrities cut an ad encouraging Republican electors, whose vote in the Electoral College actually decides the election, not to vote for Trump — even though most electors had sworn an oath to vote for the candidate who won the state.
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"We are glad the Supreme Court has recognized the paramount importance of clearly determining the rules of the road for presidential electors for the upcoming election and all future elections," said Lawrence Lessig, a lawyer for the faithless electors sanctioned in Washington and Colorado.
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While most electors say that they're not hearing much from the Democratic delegates who are purportedly campaigning to get GOP electors on board, they're still being flooded with letters, emails and phone calls from private citizens across the country urging them to abandon Trump.
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How many electors each state has is connected to how many members of Congress represent it.
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Clinton won 232 electoral votes on November 8, but "faithless electors" also brought down her total.
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In 0003, seven so-called "faithless" electors went their own way, breaking with their state results.
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Electoral College misfire The current Electoral College misfire represents another way electors could affect the election.
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That no Republican electors cast faithless votes in that election is instructive to our current situation.
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The votes cast by Ash and 3303 others chosen as presidential electors will be counted Jan.
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For example, the state of Wyoming, which has just shy of 500,000 residents, has three electors.
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The list of electors includes Christine Pelosi, a daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep.
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And how Hillary Clinton feels is, well, that electors should really vote for her — or anyone!
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Thirty-eight faithless electors from states Trump won switching their votes to Clinton would do it.
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When the electors contradict the popular vote, some people suddenly see the merits of the system.
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Six of the 19 Democratic-Republican electors from New York, all originally pledged to Madison, agreed.
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Independent electors would be "most likely to possess the information and discernment" to stop a demagogue.
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The three electors were each fined for failing to vote for the nominee of their party.
|
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In fact, nothing in the document suggests "that electors' freedom should be constrained in any way".
|
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They called upon electors to exercise their independence as a last defense against an Obama presidency.
|
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The California Republican Party and the American Independent Party ultimately appointed two separate slates of electors.
|
|
Christopher Suprun says other electors have reached out to him about other potential picks besides Trump.
|
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The 538 electors will convene around the country on Monday to vote for the next president.
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They failed and ended up with more electors defecting from Clinton than they did for Trump.
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However, the seven defectors represent the biggest pool of "faithless" electors in more than 2900 years.
|
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But it is highly unlikely that more than a handful of electors will defect against Trump.
|
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Some electors have already claimed this to be their real purpose in causing so much trouble.
|
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There are even electors who have already decided to vote differently than how they've been provisioned.
|
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The second requirement is Congress has the power to designate "the day on which" electors vote.
|
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The Reichstag decided questions affecting the whole empire, and its college of electors chose the emperor.
|
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If the presidential electors win this suit, the presidential election system is unlikely to change much.
|
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More importantly, a victory for the electors will strengthen a crucial safeguard in the constitutional system.
|
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Many "faithless" electors have cast their ballots for candidates other than those they pledged to support.
|
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Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.
|
|
But that 55 electors equals one elector per 678,945 Californians, according to the Green Papers data.
|
|
Anti-Trump groups have been pressuring 37 GOP electors to vote for someone other than Trump.
|
|
Four electors from Colorado, which also voted for Clinton, also have plans to do the same.
|
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The Hamilton Electors believe the welfare of the country is at risk under a Trump presidency.
|
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Rogue electors have never been numerous enough to actually affect the outcome of a presidential race.
|
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Your safe state vote might be wasted, or it might even be subverted by rogue electors.
|
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To overturn Trump's election, at least 37 electors would have to vote differently than their states.
|
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Democrats called for recounts, researchers questioned voting systems, and activists lobbied electors to change their votes.
|
|
We started a tradition of lobbying the electors, which has continued in every election since 2000.
|
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A better system would be to have electors selected by the winner of each congressional district.
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And it was left to the states to decide just how these electors would be chosen.
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Electors pledge to vote for their party's candidate if that person wins the state's popular vote.
|
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The majority said the Constitution allows states to insist that electors vote for their parties' candidates.
|
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"It's clear that their people and many of their electors don't accept it," Mr. Salvini said.
|
|
His appeal to his fellow electors to unify behind an alternate Republican borders on the delusional.
|
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They can adopt various measures that link their own appointment of electors to the national vote.
|
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At least six electors may become "faithless" — which would be the most significant defection since 1808.
|
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Furthermore, there are still 20 or so states that haven't even tried to bind their electors.
|
|
Just two of the 306 Republican electors, both from Texas, ultimately cast a ballot against Trump.
|
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Earlier, in Washington state, four of the 12 Democratic electors refused to vote for Hillary Clinton.
|
|
Who are these "electors" today, and is there any reason to suppose they're enlightened decision-makers?
|
|
On the Democratic side, it appeared to be the largest number of electors not supporting their party's nominee since 1872, when 63 Democratic electors did not vote for party nominee Horace Greeley, who had died after the election but before the Electoral College convened, according to Fairvote.org.
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The electors convene meetings in each state to cast ballots about six weeks after each presidential election.
|
|
From immigrant to elector: 'Living the American Dream' But mass defections of electors was always extremely unlikely.
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The majority of these electors pledge to vote in accordance with the popular vote of their precincts.
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The vast majority of the time, these electors vote for the candidates they've previously pledged to support.
|
|
In my survey of the 2000 Electoral College, I asked whether electors thought Bush was elected legitimately.
|
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These four wavering Republican electors must have been uneasy when they ultimately cast their votes for Bush.
|
|
The state Supreme Court will have until Monday at noon, when electors cast their ballots, to decide.
|
|
While the electors are generating an usual amount of attention, it is unlikely to have much effect.
|
|
More than 99% of electors through U.S. history have voted for the candidate who won their state.
|
|
The fact that electors, despite party affiliation, can vote independently has not been lost upon the populace.
|
|
Elsewhere, I have documented lobbying efforts aimed at electors to change the results of the popular vote.
|
|
So, when American citizens cast their ballots, they aren't directly voting for president – they're voting for electors.
|
|
Oregon law provides that any person may receive a statewide list of electors upon payment of $500.
|
|
In recent elections, for example, "faithless" electors have voted for Libertarian John Hospers in 1972, Texas Sen.
|
|
Later that same evening, the Democratic electors will need to solidify their support for the Republican choice.
|
|
Anti-Trump groups have been attempting to convince GOP electors not to vote for Trump on Monday.
|
|
Several states, including Colorado, prohibit electors from voting against the candidate who won the state's electoral votes.
|
|
However, some constitutional writers argue the amendment also allowed states or parties to dictate how electors vote.
|
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Presidential electors, after all, are actually the ones who cast votes for the president and vice president.
|
|
Most electors opted not to vote for a dead man and cast their ballots for other candidates.
|
|
John Kasich has rejected an effort led by Democratic electors to back him as a compromise pick.
|
|
For instance, in 2012, 20 percent of Republican electors gave some consideration to defecting from Mitt Romney.
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|
Each state gets a number of electors equal to its total number of representatives on Capitol Hill.
|
|
The Founding Fathers did not create Electoral College electors to be potted plants who simply ratify results.
|
|
But in practice, the anti-Trump electors will be lucky if more than a dozen Democrats break.
|
|
The Electoral College assigns each state electors equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress.
|
|
Sources told NPR the electors would not receive any national intelligence before they cast ballots this Monday.
|
|
With the click of a button, visitors could also mass email or fax electors in many states.
|
|
In 2000, we only needed three electors to switch their votes to give Al Gore the presidency.
|
|
Instead, states send designated electors to gather and vote in the electoral college, which convenes in December.
|
|
If only 100 electors are appointed, 51 electoral votes could potentially be enough to choose a president.
|
|
Nearly always, the electors vote for the candidate who won the most popular votes in their state.
|
|
His solution is for electors to choose a different Republican, such as John Kasich, to be president.
|
|
Coffman argued that the Constitution allows the state to bind its electors to the popular vote winner.
|
|
The electors had two votes apiece and they cast their second one for a variety of candidates.
|
|
Like most states, Washington and Colorado require their electors to follow the will of their states' voters.
|
|
As recently as 2628, the Florida legislature considered choosing the electors to resolve the Bush-Gore impasse.
|
|
Clinton's 28503 Texas electors will have to become either 22019 or 16, and if the former, then .
|
|
But because electors are divvied up among states, they would lose that status under the electoral college.
|
|
Those who have been calling for electors to be "faithless" have thus ceded too much linguistic ground.
|
|
The District of Columbia would also somehow have three electors, bringing the total to 538 electoral votes.
|
|
It is those electors who will cast the votes that legally elect the president on December 280.
|
|
Grand predictions of dozens of defecting Republican electors by anti-Trump forces proved to be wishful thinking.
|
|
Many states have even passed laws "binding" their electors to vote in accordance with the statewide outcome.
|
|
The commonality among the Democratic faithless electors — both successful and attempted — is that they're Bernie Sanders supporters.
|
|
Lessig takes that to mean states can impose only moral obligations, but not legal ones, on electors.
|
|
If the electors are going to reflexively vote the way they're supposed to, then what's the point?
|
|
From the beginning, these electors have been understood as obligated to vote in accordance with their pledge.
|
|
While individual electors may technically cast those votes for whomever they choose, it is virtually unheard of for a candidate who wins the popular vote in a state to not get all the electoral votes, and many states have laws enforcing that electors must respect the statewide vote.
|
|
The dominant political figure in antebellum America was the pro-slavery Andrew Jackson, who in 1829 proposed eliminating electors while retaining pro-slavery apportionment rules rooted in the three-fifths clause — in effect creating a system of pro-slavery electoral-vote counts without the need for electors themselves.
|
|
Several electors in this election cycle, both Democrat and Republican, have publicly expressed reservations about their respective candidates.
|
|
His transition team did not immedaitely respond to a request for comment on Podesta backing the electors' letter.
|
|
If electors deny Trump the White House on Monday, the issue will be on the table very soon.
|
|
Some states require their electors to vote for the winning candidate, either by law or through signed pledges.
|
|
If all 306 Republican electors vote for Trump, he'd easily surpass the 270 votes necessary to become president.
|
|
And electors, in principle, at a kind of abstract level, have the freedom to vote however they want.
|
|
Electors typically are party loyalists who have been selected because of their hard work during a political campaign.
|
|
Surely most Americans would rather have their electors vote for the vice presidential candidate in such a circumstance.
|
|
Other advocates called on Trump electors to use their independent judgment to vote for another, more savoury Republican.
|
|
In many cases, "faithless electors" are forced to pay a fine if they vote against the popular choice.
|
|
Under that system, the candidate who wins the popular vote in a given state gets all its electors.
|
|
The group considered Kasich as a compromise pick that would satisfy GOP electors, although Kasich rejected the offer.
|
|
For Trump to lose the presidency, 37 Republican electors would have to switch their vote on Dec. 19.
|
|
According to the statement, electors had been warned that breaking with Clinton could subject them to misdemeanor charges.
|
|
The answer, I submit, is "yes" to both and in there is the test to guide future electors.
|
|
Therefore, electors should vote the way their state's voters chose to vote except in extraordinary emergency situations. 2.
|
|
Twenty-nine states legally require their electors to obey the results of the popular vote in their state.
|
|
Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.
|
|
Within decades, electors soon went from being free to being expected to vote as their state governments commanded.
|
|
Rules differ from state to state, but the answer is, largely, the very establishment that electors have rejected.
|
|
The lawsuit challenges a state law requiring electors to vote for the winner of the state's popular vote.
|
|
If the challenge is sustained, a set of electors based on a proportional vote would be substituted instead.
|
|
Even a team of celebrities got in on the idea in a video message aimed at GOP electors.
|
|
By early Sunday afternoon, at least 38 of the 306 Republican electors must decide which Republican to support.
|
|
"These could be viewed as a sort of midterm elections, where electors sent a strong message," he said.
|
|
An attorney for the three electors told The Seattle Times they anticipate filing an appeal of Krabill's decision.
|
|
Twenty-eight other states, like Washington, require presidential electors to stick with the candidate they pledged to support.
|
|
The electors are asked to cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
|
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But most people don't pay attention to that because, technically, it's the election of the electors that matters.
|
|
None of these differences matters much under the current system, where each state chooses its own presidential electors.
|
|
Critical decision in the 10th circuit, with an extraordinary opinion finding states cannot control how presidential electors vote.
|
|
This all suggests that many (including electors) still see members of the Electoral College as having free will.
|
|
Trump won a significant share of the electors, with more than 2628 votes of the 28503 at stake.
|
|
No faithless electors have ever been punished, so political junkies will be watching to see if that changes.
|
|
If a significant number of electors end up fleeing, will he take them on or let it go?
|
|
On average in 2014, each MEP was backed by 240,000 actual voters and represented about 550,000 registered electors.
|
|
Trump won 303 electoral votes and only needed 270—it's doubtful that 34 electors are going to flip.
|
|
This outcome drives that home, with a number of faithless electors that's a record for the modern era.
|
|
Many of us were angry and terrified but still energized about things like vote audits and faithless electors.
|
|
They are bound to pick their presidential electors in mid-December, as required by federal law, Conklin added.
|
|
It is those electors who will cast the votes that legally elect the president on Monday, December 2703.
|
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Three more Democratic electors, in Colorado, Maine and Minnesota, tried to vote for candidates other than Mrs. Clinton.
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State law requires electors to sign a pledge to vote for the winner of the state's popular vote.
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In Washington, the state Supreme Court upheld a $1,000 fine against the three electors and rejected their claims.
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In addition, Democratic electors who said they would not vote for Clinton were replaced in Maine and Minnesota.
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The Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether states have the authority to penalize faithless electors.
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Three more Democratic electors — in Colorado, Maine and Minnesota — tried to vote for candidates other than Mrs. Clinton.
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There are laws in 29 states that prohibit electors from voting contrary to how the state's population votes.
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Despite the pressure, the vast majority of Republican electors are still expected to cast their votes for Trump.
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Another filing by the Colorado Republican Party argues that the two Democratic electors filed their suit too late.
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New York failed to appoint its allotment of eight electors because of a deadlock in the state Legislature.
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They've agreed to take up big issues concerning the contraceptive coverage mandate and so called "faithless" presidential electors.
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Politico said the pair's so-called "Moral Electors" movement has already found one backer in Washington's Robert Satiacum.
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It would have even been the same if the electors had been apportioned exactly by a state's population.
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All but two of the GOP nominee's electors stuck by him, giving him 304 electoral votes in total.
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And yet it also isn't a system where electors feel completely free to make up their own minds.
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And Bernie Sanders' policies veer too far left for many of the Republican electors to defect to him.
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More likely is that Republicans file objections against faithless electors to prevent their protest votes from being counted.
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One could further defend the law by arguing that state legislatures' discretion applies to the process of choosing electors — popular vote, legislative selection, poker tournament, Hunger Games competition — but Congress may protect the equality of citizens by ensuring that the substantive allocation of electors reflects the preferences of each state's voters.
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Following this principle, many of the first statewide elections for presidential electors required electors to receive not the most votes but actually reach 50 percent—and if they didn't reach that threshold, there would be a runoff between the top two finishers to ensure that the winner crossed that magical number.
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A strategy memo by the anti-Trump forces has estimated that as many as 210 Republican electors were prepared to vote for someone besides Mr. Trump, but also said many were afraid of the consequences and suggested that a poor turnout of other anti-Trump electors would weaken their resolve.
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And faithless electors are unlikely to affect the outcome even if the Electoral College tally is very close, as it was in 2000, when as few as three Republican electors could have broken their pledges and handed the presidency to the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, who won the most votes nationwide.
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Hong Kong news outlets reported that Beijing conveyed its backing for Ms. Lam to dozens of Hong Kong electors in February when Zhang Dejiang, the chairman of China's Parliament and the head of a group overseeing Hong Kong affairs, met with the electors in the neighboring mainland city of Shenzhen.
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Furthermore, three Democratic electors in other states Clinton won tried to defect but were either replaced or convinced to change their minds: Theoretically, legal challenges could be launched related to some of these electoral votes, since the constitutionality of state laws binding electors has never truly been tested in the courts.
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And it seems awfully unlikely that two progressive electors would hand the White House to Trump out of spite.
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This translates to about 22016 electors in each of the past few presidential elections who consider casting faithless votes.
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Many Southern Democrat electors were looking for an alternative to John F. Kennedy and could not stomach Richard Nixon.
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As the electors prepare to vote Monday, many say they have been besieged by phone calls and e-mails.
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This is the pitch from a group of electors calling themselves , in reference to the wildly popular Broadway musical.
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Republican electors say they have been deluged with emails, phone calls, and letters urging them not to support Trump.
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Forcing electors to vote for a dying candidate could potentially put the losing presidential candidate in the White House.
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Twenty-six states and Washington, D.C., do, however, "bind" their electors to vote for the promised candidate on Dec.
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He said that even though Hawaii sent in two separate slates of electors, the second one reflected political reality.
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Electors submitted to the state's secretary of state are the people who will officially cast Minnesota's votes for president.
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In 1796, a substantial number of Jefferson's and Adams's electors voted for various other candidates with their second ballot.
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Fortunately, uncertainty within the Electoral College could be avoided if states were to adopt the Uniform Presidential Electors Act.
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US presidents are officially elected by a group of 538 "electors" who will meet in their respective states Monday.
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Electors were then challenged by receiving thousands of phone calls, e-mails, and being subject to social media bullying.
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Kasich told electors on Tuesday that they should not vote for him, arguing it would only worsen national tensions.
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Electors in Pennsylvania will have police protection as they cast their ballots on Monday, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
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The optimal path for this reform is through each state's power to determine how it selects its presidential electors.
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Presidential candidates must also list their running mates and the electors who agree to represent them in the state.
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Thirty-seven Republican electors would have to switch their vote to someone other than Trump to block his presidency.
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A majority of the 538 electors would be Republicans, but they might not agree on the best alternative candidate.
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But only three electors outside of Washington voted for someone other than the candidate to whom they were pledged.
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The clear support of the people will hearten the electors to fulfill their constitutional duty and protect our Republic.
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However, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that electors are required to abide by those "straw poll" results.
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Most often, these wavering electors had much lower evaluations of their party's nominee than did their more committed counterparts.
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Congress rejected the votes by Democratic electors that went to Mr. Greeley, who had lost to Ulysses S. Grant.
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Michael Banerian, the youth vice-chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, will be one of his state's 16 electors.
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Micheal Baca, who is unrelated to Polly Baca, said that it's not impossible to convince the electors to switch.
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Democratic electors are the ones beating the drums for the revolt, yet they're largely powerless to change the outcome.
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At least four Democratic electors voted for someone other than Clinton, while two Republicans turned their backs on Trump.
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Instead, the framers gave a small, lucky group of people called the "electors" the power to make that choice.
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Trump is practically pleading with us — we the people, the state electors, lawmakers to keep him from the presidency.
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Not when the state's 291 electors headed up the stairs to the state Senate chamber to start their meeting.
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When the electors cast their presidential ballots that year, it was as if none of those voters existed. Why?
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Nobody seems to have an exact head count on how many other electors might threaten to do the same.
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Only two Trump electors defected from him, with one voting for John Kasich and the other for Ron Paul.
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Before Monday, nine electors in the past century had in fact done so, defying the results of their states.
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Three "faithless electors" voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell and single votes were cast for Vermont Sen.
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Hollywood stars filmed short civic-minded videos, and thousands of activists called, mailed letters, emailed, and outright harassed electors.
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But the connection was incidental, and no more of an advantage than if Congress had been named the electors.
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Before the election, each presidential candidate has his or her own slate of party-based electors in each state.
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The framers of the Constitution, and the states that ratified it, clearly expected electors to vote as they pleased.
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More than half of the states bind presidential electors to the outcome of the state's popular vote for President.
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States participating in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would require their electors to follow the nationwide majority vote.
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Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution is clear on the state power and interest in awarding electors.
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It's been more than 100 years since a group of electors have banded together to choose a different candidate.
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When that didn't work it was a laughable attempt to overturn the results of the election via faithless electors.
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Republican insiders say there are more "faithless electors" like Mr. Suprun out there, quietly plotting to dump Mr. Trump.
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Ten electors originally signed the letter when it was published Monday, and 30 more have since added their names.
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The ruling dealt with faithless electors, not the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact enacted by Colorado's legislature and governor.
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Just over half of the states have enacted measures that instruct electors to vote for their party's designated candidate.
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The charge that electors who vote their conscience are faithless, then, is not well grounded in authoritative legal sources.
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Knowing this, Americans go to the polls assuming their electors will vote for the candidate who wins their state.
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Now, these defections won't have any effect on the outcome, since Trump had a comfortable majority of pledged electors.
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Our conversation began with that online tool that lets you write to all of the electors in one go.
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Some states, like Minnesota and Montana, however, won't accept the vote of electors who defect and would find replacements.
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British citizens living overseas who are registered as overseas electors within the last 15 years can also take part.
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And, for the last six weeks, there have been calls, petitions, and letters to electors who vote in the Electoral College to become "faithless electors" and install someone who is not Donald Trump (in most cases, Hillary Clinton, who is leading in the popular vote by nearly three million votes) into the presidency.
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There are two features that combine to make this possible: Thus, winning a plurality in a low-population state is magnified twice: first by the formula for allocating electors to states, and then by the "unit" or "general ticket" or "winner take all" rule for choosing which electors are chosen in each state.
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The electors are appointed by the political parties in each state, so if you vote for Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, and Mr. Trump ends up winning the popular vote in your state, then electors that the Republican Party has chosen will cast votes for him in their state capitals in December.
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With the latest appointments, there will be 121 cardinal electors until February, when one Vatican-based Italian cardinal turns 80.
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There have been a handful faithless electors in past cycles, though never enough to change the outcome of the race.
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Electors face pleas, threats Despite his pride, Khare is paying a price for his role in picking the next president.
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On Tuesday, a judge ruled that Colorado's nine electors must vote for Clinton, in accordance with the state's popular vote.
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The three candidates, Lam, Tsang and retired Judge Woo Kwok-hing, met and shook hands with electors as they arrived.
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If Clinton only won states worth 270 electoral votes, those two rogue electors could potentially tip the race to Trump.
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His victory caused petitions to circulate calling on electors to break rank and vote Clinton into the White House instead.
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Democrats are working with a group that's lobbying electors from states Trump won to get them to vote against him.
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They have until December 19, when electors gather in statehouses across the nation to formally record their votes for president.
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The state of New York has nearly 20 million residents — 40 times the number of Wyoming — but just 29 electors.
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There is no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote for the candidate who won their state.
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It's highly unlikely that anything will change; 37 electors would have to abandon their plans to vote for Donald Trump.
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At least six electors have refused to cast their votes for Trump despite their states voting for the GOP nominee.
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In short, many have capitalized on Hamilton's cultural popularity and invoked his vision of electors serving as a deliberative body.
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Sure enough, in the end only two Republican electors turned coat, one toward Mr Kasich and one for Ron Paul.
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Thousands of e-mails and hundreds of letters to electors urged them to pick someone—anyone—other than Mr Trump.
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If notified of the outcome-altering interference in time, the electors could mitigate the damage by selecting a different candidate.
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Most states have laws binding their electors to back the winner of their state's popular vote, but others do not.
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These "wavering electors" are far more likely to have supported someone other than their party's nominee during their party's primaries.
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In the end, seven "faithless electors" cast their votes for an alternate candidate — but five of them went against Clinton.
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A Turkish policeman assassinated the Russian ambassador; a truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin; the electors back Trump.
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And in the event enough electors do defect, the election would be decided by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
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Now 54 of the 232 Democrat electors—and one Republican—have reportedly joined in on that request, according to Politico.
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All nine of the state's electors eventually cast a vote for the Democratic nominee after the rogue elector was replaced.
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Democratic electors in Maine, Minnesota and Colorado separately tried to cast votes for different candidates, but saw their ballots barred.
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Under normal circumstances, the 538 electors in the electoral college vote in line with the popular vote in each state.
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As quoted above, Article II section 1 clearly grants the legislature of each state discretion over how electors are selected.
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Yes, the state legislature has the constitutional authority to take away people's right to vote for the state's presidential electors.
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Reid told BuzzFeed News in an interview that he believes the electors deserve an intelligence briefing that some have demanded.
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My research on the Electoral College reveals that 8 in 10 electors were lobbied to change their votes in 2008.
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Theoretically, the loser of the national election could try to persuade electors to ignore the wishes of their states's voters.
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But some states have laws that punish, or even remove, presidential electors who do not vote as their state instructs.
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Jefferson won most of the electors, who then voted for him and for his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Burr.
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While electors are often pledged to a presidential candidate, they do not always cast their votes for that pledged candidate.
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The two other electors also wanted to vote for Kasich but chose to vote for Clinton instead of being replaced.
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This racist way of counting determined the number of congressional representatives in each state and thus the number of electors.
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But disintegrating the electoral college isn't the only way to change the system—electors could also distribute their votes differently.
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That power is reserved for those 538 actual people who will meet in their respective states this Monday — the electors.
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The electors were meant to be a deliberative body of intelligent, well-informed men who would be immune to corruption.
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Washington is one of 30 states with a mixture of penalties for electors who refuse to follow the election results.
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Instead, when people go to their polling stations, they are actually deciding the electors who make up the Electoral College.
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Francis, who made the announcement at his weekly Sunday address, has now chosen about 70 of the nearly 130 electors.
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During the electoral vote on Monday, seven electors defected, breaking with the results of the popular vote in their states.
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Democratic electors from Washington threatened not to support Clinton before this year's election, and their support could have been decisive.
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It does not, however, require that states even hold elections at all to determine how their electors will be allocated.
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"The founders envisioned electors as people who could prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office," writes the Atlantic's Peter Beinart.
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