Clinton electors lobbying for EC protest votes? *UPDATE* 29 electors want intel briefing

[Indy Texas]

The Electoral College does not have to be abolished, and it won't.

What needs to happen is that the Electors have to be obligated, by law, to vote for the winner of the state for which they are an Elector.

And a 19 year Elector?

Wanting to make a statement?

How stupid is that?

I like this post a lot. My only quibble is that we can't speak in total certainty about the future of our country, let alone the EC.

Thank you.

You are, of course, correct that we cannot say anything about the future with absolute certainty.

However, I think we can all agree that the abolition of the Electoral College would be a very long, drawn out, bitter affair.

And constitutionally, I believe I can say that more likely than not, at least in the immediate future, and by that I mean a considerable length of time, that any attempt to abolish the Electoral College is more likely to fail than to succeed.    

Yep. Thanks for the naunce.
It can get lonely sometimes defending the EC on the internet. You're welcome, fellow EC supporter.

Indeed, I am a firm supporter of the Electoral College.

It gives smaller states more say in the election.  

If the election for President was based completely on the popular vote, by far most of the attention from the parties and the candidates would be spent on the large states, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey.

The Electoral College system gives more influence to smaller states, and a better balance for Presidential elections.

Yes, how dare most of the attention go to the places where most of the people live!

[Indy Texas]

The whole point of the electoral college was to act as a check on the people, who have proven this year that they cannot be trusted in terms of choosing a president. If the founders didn't want the electors to be free to be faithless, they would have made the EC simply a numerical count, not an actual group of people. We need to respect the will of the founders, take all faithless elector laws off the books, and let the electors live up to their real job - acting as a check on a populace filled with low-information voters.

That's not up to you (or anyone else) to decide. ''The people have spoken'' and Trump has won states with a total of 306 electoral votes. Period.

The states have spoken, not the people.

54% of the people did not vote for Donald Trump!

[Indy Texas]

The whole point of the electoral college was to act as a check on the people, who have proven this year that they cannot be trusted in terms of choosing a president. If the founders didn't want the electors to be free to be faithless, they would have made the EC simply a numerical count, not an actual group of people. We need to respect the will of the founders, take all faithless elector laws off the books, and let the electors live up to their real job - acting as a check on a populace filled with low-information voters.

That's not up to you (or anyone else) to decide. ''The people have spoken'' and Trump has won states with a total of 306 electoral votes. Period.

That's the recommendation of the people yes, but the founders intention was that the electors should be able to reject that recommendation. For as long as we decide as a society to keep using the EC, we need to respect that intention.

This is wrong on so many levels.

The intent of the EC - and our Republic in general - is not to be "a check on the people", but instead a check on the Federal Government. So that a few high populous states (really just a few high populous cities) don't have total control of our nation's policies.

If the roles were reversed, and the electors 'in good conscience' rejected your winning candidate because 'the people cannot be trusted', you'd be screaming about fascism and the end of our country (and rightly so).

Are you suggesting that people who live in cities don't matter as much as people who live in the middle of nowhere?