The electoral college does not vote until December 19th. We have 40 days.
What does this mean?
Right now, the presidential election results are only a PROJECTION of the election outcome. They are PRELIMINARY RESULTS. A candidate still needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means that more than 50% of the voters wanted her for president. The electoral college shouldn’t guarantee an override of the public’s opinion– and it doesn’t have to.
There are 21 states that do NOT restrict which candidate the electors vote for. Out of these 21, Hillary lost the following:
As you can see, these states are worth 166 electoral votes. As it currently stands, Hillary Clinton is projected to receive 232 votes. Trump is projected to win 306. This means that 37 votes need to be taken away from Trump to bring him down to 269. Hillary Clinton needs 38 votes ADDED to win 270. These electoral voters can also abstain, which means that they can refuse to vote for either candidate. If 37 of the voters within these states abstain then no candidate will have reached the required 270. In this case, the vote would be taken to the House.
Trump won Pennsylvania, a state that typically votes blue, by less than 100,000 votes. While it is highly unlikely to get all 20 electoral voters to cross party lines and vote democrat, it also isn’t impossible to convince a few of them to be “faithless electors.” We only need to convince 38 out of the 166. That is 23%. There are SIXTEEN states we need to focus our attention on.
A move like this would be unprecedented. However, as we all saw on November 8th, odds don’t guarantee reality. Trump had a less than 20% chance of winning, yet given the circumstances, enough people came together and made it happen. We can make this happen.
Ask yourself this: What do we have left to lose? We can stay complacent and accept that this country will be run by a racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, ablest bigot, or we can at least try.
How?
SPREAD THE WORD. Trend #NotMyPresident to let people know that we do not accept being led by a man who does not care about our wellbeing. Email your professors, email the dean of your colleges. The last thing a university wants is negative press. Millenials can take a stand, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the only ones. Church-led events helped bring a lot of disillusioned voters to the polls. Spread the word in any way possible, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even in person. Stage a peaceful protest. Hand out flyers. Let the people around you know that you don’t accept this man as your leader when he won’t even accept you as a citizen with your designated rights.
These 166 people need to face the consequences of electing this man.
Do this for the people who couldn’t vote. Do this for the people who live in the very real fear of being deported. Do this for the people who will have to face the rise in hate crimes. Do this for the people who have a very real possibility of losing their rights. Do this for the people who will no longer be able to afford necessities.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Is this possible?
Yes, I wouldn’t have made the post without doing my research. Read the following paragraphs, taken from archives.gov:
Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for?
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. (The 16 states listed above do NOT restrict their electors to this rule.) These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Can Hillary still receive votes from the electoral college even though she’s conceded?
Think about it, Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. All of the electoral voters didn’t immediately vote for President Obama the second he conceded. The election still ended up being 332 votes to 206. Not 538 unanimous votes for Barack Obama.
“For starters, it doesn’t matter if a losing candidate concedes, as far as the Electoral College process goes, according to Amy Bunk, director of legal affairs and policy at the Office of the Federal Register, among other experts.”
Conceding does not take a candidate’s name off of the ballot that the electoral voters see. In the past, “faithless electors” have voted for the projected losing candidate, or even voted third party.
Concession really only means acceptance of the PROJECTED outcome. This does not mean that the actual outcome cannot be different from the projected outcome. Please keep this in mind.
HERE ARE THE ELECTORS YOU CAN BE CONTACTING
ARIZONA (9 Electors): J. Foster Morgan of Glendale, Walter Begay Jr. of Kayenta, Bruce Ash of Tucson, Sharon Giese of Mesa, James O’Connor of Scottsdale, Jerry Hayden of Scottsdale, Robert Graham of Phoenix, Edward Robson of Phoenix, Carole Joyce of Phoenix, Alberto Gutier of Phoenix, Jane Pierpoint Lynch of Phoenix
ARKANSAS (6 Electors): Jonathan Barnett, Jonelle Fulmer, Keith Gibson, Tommy Land, John Nabholz, Sharon R. Wright
GEORGIA (16 Electors): Not Listed, previous reports of a likely faithless elector
INDIANA (11 Electors): Stephanie Beckley, Jamestown; Daniel Bortner, Bedford; Laura Campbell, Carmel; Jeff Cardwell, Indianapolis; Donald L. Hayes, Jasper; Randall Kirkpatrick, Ligonier; Ethan E. Manning, Indianapolis; Macy Kelly Mitchell, Indianapolis; Edwin J. Simcox, Muncie; Fishers Kevin Steen, Muncie; Chuck Williams, Valparaiso
IOWA (6 Electors): Not Listed
KANSAS (6 Electors): Not Listed
KENTUCKY (8 Electors): Not Listed
LOUISIANA (8 Electors, includes alternates): Chris Trahan, Candy Maness, Lloyd Harsh, Jennifer Madsen, Charles Buckels, Christian Gil, Louis Avalone, Constance Diane Long, Kay Kellogg Katz, Verne Breland, Lennie Rhys, Glenda Pollard, Garret Monti, Scott Wilfong, John Batt, Raymond Griffin
MISSOURI (10 Electors, missing 2): Tim Dreste, Jan DeWeese, Hector Maldonado, Sherry Kuttenkuler, Casey Crawford, Tom Brown, Cherry Warren, Scott Clark
TEXAS (38 Electors): Marty Rhymes, Thomas Moon, Carol Sewell, John Harper, Sherrill Lenz, Nicholas Ciggelakis, Will Hickman, Landon Estay, Rex Lamb, Rosemary Edwards, Matt Stringer, Shellie Surles, Melissa Kalka, Sandra Cararas, David Thackston, Robert Bruce, Margie Forster, Scott Mann, Marian K. Stanko, Tina Gibson, Ken Muenzter, Alexander Kim, Virginia Abel, John Dillard, Tom Knight, Marian Knowlton, Rex Teter, Stephen Suprun Jr., Jon Jewett, Susan Fischer, Lauren Byers, William Greene, Mary Lou Erben, Arthur Sisneros
WEST VIRGINIA (5 Electors, missing 1): Ron Foster, Patrick Morrissey, Ann Urling, Mac Warner
SOURCE. If anyone can find information on those not listed, please let me know.
ALSO a friendly reminder that a concession is not set in stone, and can be reversed:
“…a spoken concession does not necessarily deny a candidate office if there is a drastic reversal in the vote count…
It is exceedingly rare for a concession, once issued, to be retracted; BUT such an event occurred in the United States 2000 presidential election, when Democratic candidate Al Gore, Jr. telephoned RepublicanGeorge W. Bush to concede the contest. Gore was apparently unaware of the close vote count in the state of Florida, and when he realized it, he proceeded to cancel his concession address.”
#NotMyPresident T-Shirts If interested, order closes on November 23rd. Prices are $20, and orders will be shipped directly to your address. All proceeds go directly to Planned Parenthood, an organization likely to be defunded under a Trump presidency. Link HERE.
Angela Merkel just said she’ll offer Donald Trump cooperation, on the basis that he respects people’s dignity no matter the place of birth, colour of their skin, beliefs, their sex, sexuality or their political convictions.
So….I guess germany and the us just broke up?
Merkel basically said “Cut your racist and sexist bullshit and then maybe I’ll talk to you”.
She’s doing more than that. In the German original she speaks of the Würde des Menschen – The dignity of man. That’s the first line of the German constitution:
Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar- The dignity of man is inviolable.
She’s literally throwing the book at him and reminding him she’ll only work with him on the terms of the constitution.
I mean, I disagree with her on quite a few things, but I’m very happy with her response.
I’m a historian. Don’t know how many of you know that. I’m getting a PhD in history, with a specialty in dictatorship, trauma, and childhood. It’s a field I’ve never wanted to actually be this useful in real life…
I’ve been dreading a Trump presidency from the outset of his candidacy because I’ve studied dictatorial regimes and the fragile lines between democratic and authoritarian rule for the entirety of my adult life. I know what the collapse of democratic rule looks like.
This is it people. We’re at that point. It’s not a joke, it’s not hyperbole, it’s not conjecture. We’re about to live in a xenophobic police state. That’s about to become our reality.
Now, more than ever before, it is essential for us to stick together. Love one another, support one another, stand with one another. All forms of oppression are linked. People like Trump will want to divide us. They’ll want to break us down from the inside and outside. They’ll want to fracture our spirit and our sense of worth. Don’t let them. Know that you matter, know that you are not alone, know that small acts of kindness and solidarity can mean the difference between life and death.
I can use history to make predictions based on past knowledge, but the present and the future are constantly being rewritten. We are the agents of change in this world. We can make a difference.
Go out tomorrow, find a cause. NARAL, ASPCA, Planned Parenthood, A New Way Forward, The Innocence Project, Oxfam, Greenpeace… find out about programs and groups that deal with human trafficking, with racism, with sexism, with women’s health, LGBTQA rights, with what you want to fucking change! Sign up, and fucking fight.
Intern at your local congressional office! Stuff envelops! Listen to citizen complaints! Help dig us out of this shitstorm!
Donate money! Donate time! Be a Big Brother or a Big Sister. Reach out and find what your community needs! Join a litter collecting squad or write cards for people at an elderly community or buy a family in need groceries.
There is. So. Much. You. Can. Still. Do.
Online activism is all well and good, but these groups need feet on the fucking pavement. Don’t confuse shouting at people online as activism! So put up, and let’s shut this racist, classist, misogynistic, rape apologist down.
here is an extremely easy thing to do! the next time you buy pads or razors and you have enough money to buy an extra pack or a travel set of toothpaste / toothbrush, buy an extra one and donate it to a women’s shelter! or buy good socks or good underwear if you can afford it!
Ok y’all out here talking about harming Trump have fun because the feds legit watch this site and Tumblr has zero problems with submitting your data to them if they ask for it so you can be mad all day but I strongly recommend you don’t sit here and catch a case by threatening the presumptive president elect.
https://www.tumblr.com/transparency y’all think I’m playing but it’s literally right here. Tumblr does get requests for user data from the federal government due to active investigations like don’t be this dumb
Steel Phoenix Studios 