Is the Electoral College required to elect Donald Trump when the 538 Electors cast their ballots on December 19 for president of the United States?
Apparently not. A
Change.org petition was started last week to urge Electors to do just that: prevent Donald Trump from taking office.
Started by a North Carolina resident, the petition titled
“Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December
19” has now taken hold, garnering over 4.3 million signatures as of Nov. 17.
The petition is now the largest-ever started on Change.org in the United States.
It reads: “If [the Electors] all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win. However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton, if they choose. Even in states where that is not
allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine --- which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay!”
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“We are calling on the
Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton. Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsivity, bullying, lying,
admitted history of sexual assault and utter lack of experience makes him a danger to the Republic.”
According to FactCheck.org, “there is no constitutional provision or
Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states.” States can ask Electors to pledge to support their state’s eventual choice, with
some prescribing fines between $500-$1,000 to the so-called “faithless electors.”
In essence, the Electoral College was created to add an extra step between a fully
popular election and the actual choice of who will run the country for the next four years. In the opinion of many, it was created to avoid an unprepared populist like Trump from taking over.
In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton opined that “the choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any
extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.”
Adding with prescient accuracy, “the process of
election affords a moral certainty, that the office of the President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
“Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents,
and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union.”
In a pre-social-media era, a Donald Trump presidency may have been
impossible. Today, the intricacies of the Electoral College have elevated Donald Trump to the highest office in the land.
The Electoral College process failed in 2016 to prevent the
rise of a woefully under-prepared demagogue, which is exactly what it was intended to do. Now, the unbound nature of Electors has given rise to the final opportunity to block a Trump presidency.
Two Democratic Electors have already called for their Republican colleagues to block Trump. According to a Politico report, Democratic Electors Bret Chiafolo (Wash.) and Michael
Baca (Colo.) are campaigning for Republicans to change their votes.
“This is a long shot,” Chiafolo told Politico. “However, I do see situations where --
when we’ve already had two or three [Republican] electors state publicly they didn’t want to vote for Trump, how many of them have real issues with Donald Trump in private?”
Note: A new Web site for the Change.org petition has been unreachable due to excessive traffic.