- The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country. Presidential electors have the legal right and a constitutional duty to vote their conscience. I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. I pray my fellow electors will do their job and join with me in discovering who that person should be.
Wow. Brave stating this before the vote, probably at the peril of being replaced. I think some states allow for that. This is our only hope right now. My money was on Romney, but interesting that he names Kasich specifically. Anyway it doesn't matter so long as enough (37 I think) electors defect. They don't need to be united on anything. The HoR will vote between the top 3 vote getters in that case, with Democrats presumably voting for whoever the not Trump Republican is (that is assuming the 30 or so Republicans also vote for him (dare I say him and not her?)). I've heard all the arguments for Trump and I think they're all horseshit. Electors can do what they want, and if they still care about America (he's floated a felon for State and ineligible general for Defense) they will not cast their lot for him. Two weeks and we'll find out, but it's still fun to speculate until that last lost of innocence arrives :)
This FairVote list says that Texas is not one of the states that binds its electors to vote a certain way. Furthermore, the worst penalty I've heard for "faithless electing" is something akin to Florida's penalty of $1,000 fine, a misdemeanor charge, and disbarment from future electoral colleges. But there's a non-negligible likelihood that any state law interfering with an elector's decision to vote is actually unconstitutional, though I don't believe such laws have ever been challenged. Not to count unhatched chickens, but what happens in the event of a royal upset December 19th and Trump receives less than 270 votes? Will the entire reselection process occur later that day? As I understand it, there would have to be the Electoral College upset, then the House of Representatives called into session (I don't believe they're in session on 12/19, or any of that week for that matter), the candidates are summoned (do they speak to the House before the vote?), the House vote occurs according to rules of intrastate quorum and majority, then, assuming no tie occurs, the candidate is selected. This doesn't sound like it'll happen in a day.
I'm not sure anyone knows how it'll work. The House hasn't been called on to pick the President since the nasty deal that ended Reconstruction (like 1872 or something). There may be rules written down, but there's no institutional memory to draw on. At this point, as much as I'd like to not live in Donald Trump's America, I really don't know what the better result for the republic would be. I won't shed a tear for him if he isn't picked, but I'm also a little afraid of the consequences.
I made a similar point of being hesitant to jump on the Stein recount effort for fear that a reversal so back channel and legalistic would be destabilizing enough to outweigh the benefits of a non-Trump presidency. I guess there's some comfort in knowing that all of this completely out of our hands right now. What'll happen will happen. #seriousseason
Not that hard at this point. I actually am kind of sick of sending money to all these butt-fuck morons who obviously have no idea where their healthcare, roads, military, and coal mining leases come from. Trump presidency, while morally abhorrent, means my bottom line gets bigger, potentially a lot bigger. I'm not callous enough to think that's a good reason to ever support him, but I'm not going to complain about lower taxes while they last. Just enjoy the blood money for a few years until sanity is hopefully restored.