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‘Rogue’ Democrat Electors Plan To Vote Another Republican To Block Trump From Winning Electoral College Majority Needed To Be President

By Tito Ojo-Medubi
Published on: 19:03 PST, Nov 22, 2016

Six Democrats are prepared to go “rogue” and vote for a Republican besides Donald Trump to block him from winning an Electoral College majority, the New York Post is reporting. The checkmate is not only designated to deny Trump the White House but also to challenge the authority of the electoral institution.

The Democratic electors who mainly supported Bernie Sanders are from Colorado and Washington State. They are also persuading their Republican counterparts to forget their oaths and dump Trump who is expected to end up with 307 electoral votes if there are no defections within his party.

If the “faithless electors” can vote for another Republican besides Trump, they keep the president-elect from reaching 270 votes meant to get him into the White House. The Democrats gone “rogue” need to convince 37 Republican electors to defect.

The Electoral College meets December 19.

This will not by any means give Hillary Clinton a chance to be president. Instead, it cedes the decision to the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Many pundits say the likelihood of a new president besides Trump, will not happen.

However, what will likely happen is for the dissenting Democrats to put forth the issue of getting rid of the Electoral College. Kermit Roosevelt, a professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School agreed that the Electoral College was a contentious issue that needed to be addressed. Roosevelt said the alteration would not be easy because the college has always benefited Republicans. He added that since they control the present policy. it might not be going away anytime soon.

According to the Independent, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump presently stands at more than 1.7 million votes. Mrs. Clinton so far has 63.6 million votes compared to President-elect Trump who has 61.9 million votes. The Democrat has received 48 percent of votes compared to Mr. Trump who has 46.7 percent of votes counted.

Hillary Clinton’s numbers are more than any other U.S. presidential candidate in political history except for Barack Obama. Unfortunately, she still lost the election because the Electoral College tally ultimately decides who gets to be president. Mr. Trump reeled in 290 electoral votes compared to Mrs. Clinton who banked 232. A minimum of 270 electoral votes are required to win the presidency.

The Manhattan billionaire won the presidency after taking the battleground states of Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida. He also surprisingly snatched victory in the Democrat “firewall” of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Libertarian’s Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party won more than seven million votes between them. If those votes had gone to the 69-year-old Democrat, she would have been president-elect.

Even the most optimistic Democrat elector knows that getting Republicans to reject Mr. Trump and endorse a consensus pick like John Kasich or Mitt Romney is a tall order. However, the Democrats are encouraged that by raising dissenting voices, they would question the veracity of the Electoral College and stoke up the fire to review it. A prominent Electoral College critic, George Edwards III agreed that even with a Trump win in December, a slew of Republican reservations could impede the outlook of the institution.

“If you could get eight or 10 Trump electors to vote for someone else…then that would probably get people’s attention…we haven’t had that many faithless electors in one election.”

Democratic elector, Polly Baca argued that the Electoral College be returned to its original conception as etched out by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. According to the former Colorado state senator “if we cannot use the Electoral College as a deliberative process…then we ought to do away with it.”

The 538 members who make up the Electoral College will cast their formal vote in their respective state capitals in December for president. Dozens of Republican electors who doused their support for Trump before November 8 are now committed to supporting him.

According to Fairvote.org, there have been 157 “faithless” electors in 228 years, 71 of whom changed their votes because their candidate died. The last time that so many electors defected from their presidential candidate was in 1872 when Democratic nominee, Horace Greeley died before votes could be cast.

The last time this many electors rejected a living presidential candidate was 1808.

Hillary Clinton’s loss in November is the second time in five elections that a Democrat will win the popular vote, but fall short in securing an Electoral College majority.

In 2012, President-elect Trump called it a “disaster for democracy” after mistakenly thinking that President Barack Obama had lost the popular vote.

[Featured Image by Muhammed Muheisen/AP Images]

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