As one of the 538 Electors we're now faced with a historic responsibility

[flamingdem]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/27/1604531/-As-one-of-the-538-Electors-we-re-now-faced-with-a-historical-responsibility

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What we learned and agreed to was the proposed comprehensive nationwide legal strategy to unbind each of the National Electors in 29 states which possess state laws that seek to remove and restrict the free will in the act of voting their conscience during the Electoral College vote. There are other legal strategies to enjoin all the fifty states in this matter and the entire institution of the Electoral College.

Regardless of the public rhetoric and pronouncements regarding the Electoral College the one fact remains, constitutionally no president is elected until the Electoral College votes in the majority and if it is not a majority than the process goes to the House of Representatives. This is the current law of the land and the only path a president can be inaugurated to office.

The justification for our actions is that this election process is no longer trustworthy as to expressing the consent of the nation and that it appears to me and those in our meeting that the United States was attacked by a foreign adversary (or adversaries both state and otherwise) and that Donald J Trump’s regime was connected to them in a number of already reported ways. I and others are now of the belief that we are in a new phrase of the Cold War, that defined my childhood to young adulthood though now the attacks use cyber penetrations coupled with powerful and sophisticated psy-ops strategies. The basis that he has clearly demonstrated the lacking of moral and ethical leadership qualities only magnifies the urgency to act.

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Therefore we seeking to generate the following actions: Free up every Elector to know they can vote different than their partisan station without legal or local threat of retribution. Seek out Republican and Democratic Electors willing to join a non-partisan coalition movement to identify an alternative, one that is a responsible slate of leaders who will be President of the United States. This slate would be comprised of either two Republican leaders that both a majority of electors would agree to or a Republican President and Democratic vice president. It would be the example of non-partisan political action that has been vacant in national politics for over a generation and necessary to confront this foreign adversary threat to our representative form of government.

Personally I wish this responsibility on no one. The process and subsequent vote on December 19th will be unprecedented and those voting will be responsible personally for the future of this nation, its representative form of government and the welfare of their family’s and friends. They will have to live with the decision for the rest of their lives and may adversely be affected or harmed for either a courageous or cowardly vote of conscience. There are no half measures here, once you become aware of the situation and your role in it you have to come to the courageous vote.

What can you do? We asking for more information. The most important is if you are personally acquainted with a National Elector in any state in the union we need to know. We are seeking private contact information to reach out to them, inform them and encourage them to join with us in a non-partisan effort. You may private message me through Kos and I will pass it on. Secondly, if you were acquainted or knowledgeable of websites and/or data systems that strangely received heavy foreign IP traffic, most notably Russian, but from any other off shore IP address, please inform me as well. Lastly, I am asking for the total partisans to stand down and allow us some measure of responsible deliberation and effort. Unless Hillary’s campaign by some extreme reversal flips WI, MI and PA in recounts she will not be the president of the US regardless of the reported popular vote. This election cannot afford any symbolic Elector vote.

[The Blue Flower]

1. This brave elector puts me in mind of the founders who risked their lives and fortunes

I posted it on my FB page. At least some are trying to do the right thing.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Electors were supposed to be independent older wise men

with the long term interests of the Republic foremost in their minds

Parties, factions as the Founders called them, took over, and they
are hired guns, making the Electoral College all but moot

Perhaps its purpose can be revived this year, for the good of the
United States

[jmg257]

3. So now we have 538 people getting to decide who the president and vice-president are

for the entire country?

Wow - lots of power in so few people.

"those voting will be responsible personally for the future of this nation, its representative form of government and the welfare of their family’s and friends. They will have to live with the decision for the rest of their lives and may adversely be affected or harmed for either a courageous or cowardly vote of conscience."

BTW - the entire nation will have to live with their decision, not just themselves.

[Retrograde]

7. It's not exactly new

the process has been in place since 1789, ostensibly to keep one section of the country from being dominant (back then it was New England vs New York/Pennsylvania vs the South), but populations have shifted drastically since then. We've seen two failures since 2000, both cases where the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral college vote do to the heavy weighting of sparsely populated rural states.

Unforunately, abolishing it requires the votes of those thinly settled states, who like the power it gives them too much to do so.

[Farmgirl1961]

4. While it is fabulous to see that there are some honorable electors

I just don't think that there are enough of them out there with the fortitude to do the right thing...

[flamingdem]

5. A Texas Republican just resigned as elector due to his conscience

Maybe he'll start a trend!

[Farmgirl1961]

6. Yes, I saw that...

But most likely he will be replaced with a Trump supporter. I suppose good for him for removing himself from the process, but it doesn't really do much good (unless, as you suggest a wide majority of electors "boycott" by resigning.

[LisaL]

10. What good would that trend do?

By resigning, he ensured that whoever they replaced him with, will have no problems voting for Trump.

[MadDAsHell]

8. This is fantastic. I don't see people giving up private contact information for electors though...

especially since some of them have apparently already been receiving threats. Maybe there could be a secure website where electors could submit their information to be contacted.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

9. The Electoral College Was Designed To Prevent Trump. You Can Make This Happen.

Trump can still be stopped. The Founding Fathers foresaw just this catastrophe, and built a fail-safe into the Constitution. It’s called the Electoral College. Alexander Hamilton was explicit: this mechanism was designed to ensure that “the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” In short, it was designed to prevent just this situation: the rise of an unqualified demagogue like Donald Trump.

(continued)