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The presidential electors, mostly former Bernie Sanders supporters who hail from Washington state and Colorado, are now lobbying their Republican counterparts in other states to reject their oaths — and in some cases, state law — to vote against Trump when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19.
Even the most optimistic among the Democratic electors acknowledges they're unlikely to persuade the necessary 37 Republican electors to reject Trump — the number they'd likely need to deny him the presidency and send the final decision to the House of Representatives. And even if they do, the Republican-run House might simply elect Trump anyway.
But the Democratic electors are convinced that even in defeat, their efforts would erode confidence in the Electoral College and fuel efforts to eliminate it, ending the body's 228-year run as the only official constitutional process for electing the president. With that goal in mind, the group is also contemplating encouraging Democratic electors to oppose Hillary Clinton and partner with Republicans in support of a consensus pick like Mitt Romney or John Kasich.
The underlying idea is that a mass defection of electors could provide the impetus for a wave of changes to the Electoral College.
"I do think that a byproduct would be a serious look into Electoral College reform," said Micheal Baca, a Democratic elector from Colorado who is spearheading the anti-Trump effort, along with Washington state elector P. Bret Chiafalo.
"If it gets into the House, the controversy and the uncertainty that would immediately blow up into a political firestorm in the U.S. would cause enough people — my hope is — to look at the whole concept of the Electoral College," said another elector involved in the anti-Trump planning, who declined to be identified.
One prominent Electoral College critic says that even if Trump wins easily on Dec. 19, a small number of Republican defections could still roil the future 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," said George Edwards III, a political science professor and Electoral College expert at Texas A&M University. "We haven't ever had that many faithless electors in one election."
Democratic elector Polly Baca (no relation to Micheal) said the Electoral College should be returned to its original conception — as laid out by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers — as a deliberative body able to exercise free choice while using popular votes only as a guide.
"If we cannot use the Electoral College as a deliberative process ... then we ought to do away with it," said Baca, a former co-chairman of the Democratic National Convention and former Colorado state senator.
The 538 members who comprise the Electoral College are slated to gather in their respective state capitals on Dec. 19 to cast the formal vote for president. Trump won the popular vote in states making up 290 electoral votes — and he's leading narrowly in Michigan, which carries another 16 electoral votes. If all of them vote for Trump, he'll win 306 electoral votes, easily exceeding the 270-vote majority he needs to become president. That's why the magic number is 37 Republican defections.
Dozens of Republican electors, picked at state and local party conventions, have signaled discomfort with Trump, but most have committed to supporting him despite their misgivings. Only a handful have said they'd consider voting against him in the Electoral College.
One, Texas' Art Sisneros, said he's still making up his mind. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, another elector, called on Trump to withdraw from the race after a tape of his comments about sexually assaulting women leaked in October. But he's since confirmed he'd still support Trump with his electoral vote.
A slew of Democrats, on the other hand, have also signaled they may defect from Clinton, which wouldn't help or hinder Trump's path to the White House but could contribute to a sense of disarray and voter disenfranchisement.
In any case, it's hard to know exactly how many faithless electors may be out there because there's no organized effort by candidates or parties to whip votes or track support.
Polly Baca, who's still considering whether to cast her vote against Clinton, said that she'll decide in part based on whether there's a strategic consensus reached with other Democrats to vote for another candidate.
Already, the six Democrats prepared to be "faithless" electors would be the most to defect from their party's presidential candidate since 1872, when Democratic nominee Horace Greeley died before electors cast their votes. The last time that many electors rejected a living presidential candidate was 1808.
Robert Nemanich, another Colorado elector prepared to cast a faithless vote, said he's spoken to five electors in his state alone who intend to join him.
The rarity of the faithless elector phenomenon is rooted in electors' reluctance to reject the will of the voters. But it's also because 29 states — including Colorado and Washington — have laws mandating that electors support the winner of the state popular vote.
These laws, though, have never been enforced or challenged. And some of them impose only modest fines but provide no recourse to change the outcome.
In recent elections, the Electoral College has become an increasingly vexing issue for Democrats, who won the popular vote in 2000, only to see George W. Bush take the White House because of the electoral vote math. Should the college vote for Trump, as expected, it'll be the same story: Clinton led the popular vote by about 1.7 million votes as of Monday morning.
To repeal the Electoral College outright would require a constitutional amendment — and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) conveniently proposed one last week. But it's unlikely to advance in a Republican-controlled Congress. Another measure, a multistate compact already enacted in 11 states, would require electors to support the winner of the national popular vote. But that would take effect only if enough states join to comprise a majority of the Electoral College.
So far, the 11 signatory states — all solidly Democratic — make up just 165 electoral votes.
Ironically, Democrats have taken heart from Trump's own statements regarding the Electoral College. In the past, the president-elect has called the body a "disaster for democracy." In 2012, he urged supporters to march on Washington when he believed Mitt Romney had won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.
His views haven't changed. In a recent, post-election interview with "60 Minutes," he said, "I would rather see it where you went with simple votes."
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