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Predict The Electoral College

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Skeptic Tank said:
Should people who break into our country against our will not be kicked out?
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There was a time migrant workers basically freely crossed the border at seasonal times to tend to agriculture's demand for their labor. When the border became harder to cross, workers began to opt to stay in the US in case they couldn't get back in. "Breaking in" isn't what I'd call answering a job advert no one else in the receiving country is at all interested in, and still isn't. Such hard work at low wages only makes sense for someone who is sending the money home to a country where the wages are more significant due to differences in living standards. - Gosh, that last sentence makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it? How about a time-out to change thinking? - Migrant agricultural workers are a benefit to the US economy, and are the right fit for the job according to conservative economic thinking. They just make good fodder for radio hate jocks and the suckers who tune in.

@OP And I was pretty darn close on my estimate of Trumps electoral votes.
 
Amy thoughts on the number of faithless electors and to abd for whom they will be unfaithful?
 
wareyin said:
I've seen 7 electors pledge to be faithless, but all 7 were pledged to Clinton. Seems like a useless move on their part.
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Some people just don't want Trump to be president. If Trump loses 37 electoral boats, the Electoral College will be deadlocked and the election will go to the House of Representatives at which point the States will vote on the top three candidates put forward by the Electoral College.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Some people just don't want Trump to be president. If Trump loses 37 electoral boats, the Electoral College will be deadlocked and the election will go to the House of Representatives at which point the States will vote on the top three candidates put forward by the Electoral College.
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Right, but the 7 faithless electors are pledged to Clinton. If they follow through on not voting for Clinton, that means 44 other electors pledged to Trump would have to vote another way. What these 7 are doing gives Trump a bigger margin of victory, even though none of the 7 claims to want a Trump presidency.
 
wareyin said:
Right, but the 7 faithless electors are pledged to Clinton. If they follow through on not voting for Clinton, that means 44 other electors pledged to Trump would have to vote another way. What these 7 are doing gives Trump a bigger margin of victory, even though none of the 7 claims to want a Trump presidency.
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No, a candidate must have at least 270 votes in the Electoral College to win the presidency. Regardless of how many electoral votes Clinton loses, Trump only needs to lose 37 for him to lose the majority of the votes of all the electors. When there is no absolute majority in the Electoral College, the house decides the election by voting one state one vote on the top three candidates who received electoral votes. Taking votes away from Clinton--who is probably not going to win the Electoral College anyway--is a strategic move to put someone else on the ballot submitted to the House.
 
mijopaalmc said:
No, a candidate must have at least 270 votes in the Electoral College to win the presidency. Regardless of how many electoral votes Clinton loses, Trump only needs to lose 37 for him to lose the majority of the votes of all the electors. When there is no absolute majority in the Electoral College, the house decides the election by voting one state one vote on the top three candidates who received electoral votes. Taking votes away from Clinton--who is probably not going to win the Electoral College anyway--is a strategic move to put someone else on the ballot submitted to the House.
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You are correct. However many jump ship from Clinton doesn't mean more have to jump ship from Trump, I was wrong.

However, Clinton getting 7 fewer electoral votes than she won does nothing whatsoever to take votes from Trump. It is a symbolic gesture that has no chance stopping a Trump presidency. For faithless electors to change the outcome, we would need those pledged to Trump to be abstaining of voting for someone else, not those pledged to Clinton.
 
wareyin said:
You are correct. However many jump ship from Clinton doesn't mean more have to jump ship from Trump, I was wrong.

However, Clinton getting 7 fewer electoral votes than she won does nothing whatsoever to take votes from Trump. It is a symbolic gesture that has no chance stopping a Trump presidency. For faithless electors to change the outcome, we would need those pledged to Trump to be abstaining of voting for someone else, not those pledged to Clinton.
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There is a possibility that one or two of the recounts that are currently going on find that Clinton actually won those States. Clinton has to win all three of those states to win a majority of votes in the Electoral College. However, Clinton's winning the states that Trump previously had one would mean fewer electors would have to be faithless get rid of Trumps majority.
 
mijopaalmc said:
There is a possibility that two of the recounts that are currently going on find that Clinton actually won those States. Clinton has to win all three of those states to win a majority of votes in the Electoral College. However, Clinton's winning the states that Trump previously had one would mean fewer electors would have to be faithless get rid of Trumps majority.
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True, except 7 of the electors that Clinton won have already declared that they won't be voting for Clinton. It's not likely that she will win any of the three recount states (I read this morning of a filing for a recount in Florida, too), but losing these 7 electors puts her further away even if by some crazy happening she does get any state she lost.
 
wareyin said:
True, except 7 of the electors that Clinton won have already declared that they won't be voting for Clinton. It's not likely that she will win any of the three recount states (I read this morning of a filing for a recount in Florida, too), but losing these 7 electors puts her further away even if by some crazy happening she does get any state she lost.
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I think the point is, as I stated before, that people are more interested in stopping Trump from becoming president and then having Clinton become president. In other words, Clinton electors are willing to vote for anyone even if it's not Clinton as long as it stop Trump from becoming president.
 
mijopaalmc said:
I think the point is, as I stated before, that people are more interested in stopping Trump from becoming president and then having Clinton become president. In other words, Clinton electors are willing to vote for anyone even if it's not Clinton as long as it stop Trump from becoming president.
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And how exactly will people who were pledged to vote for Clinton refusing to vote for Clinton prevent Trump becoming president?
 
mijopaalmc said:
I think the point is, as I stated before, that people are more interested in stopping Trump from becoming president and then having Clinton become president. In other words, Clinton electors are willing to vote for anyone even if it's not Clinton as long as it stop Trump from becoming president.
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It makes no sense to me why the faithless Clinton electors believe this tactic will work. It won't. The 306 electors pledged to vote for Trump will vote for Trump, and will do so enthusiastically.
 
wareyin said:
And how exactly will people who were pledged to vote for Clinton refusing to vote for Clinton prevent Trump becoming president?
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They'll try anything.

It won't work. It won't even come close. But I think I understand their thinking, at least on the surface.

At least one of the ones who has publicly discussed her intended faithlessness plans to vote for "Another Republican". She didn't say who, at least in the article I read. Her theory is that she will inspire some Trump electors to vote for some Republican other than Trump. If enough of them do that, then Trump doesn't have an electoral majority, so the House gets to pick the President from among the top vote getters, and the Republican House picks a non-Trump Republican.

I think the underlying theory is that Republicans also hate Trump, but feel stuck with him. She's trying to demonstrate that there is, technically, an alternative.


It could work in a made for TV movie, but not in the real world. Trump is going to be President.


I thought of another plot for a made for TV movie. Again, unrealistic, but it could produce an interesting bit of legal maneuvering. It has been asked on this board what happens if the President elect or vice President elect dies before the college votes. That contingency is pretty much taken care of, but I'll pose another one. What if, in a razor thin election, like the one of 2000, one or more electors die before casting their votes.

I'll bet that states have contingencies to cover that sort of thing, but I'm imagining that those contingencies vary from one state to another. Perhaps a governor can appoint a replacement? So I'm imagining that there's a one vote margin, and then two electors die. The governor, of the opposite party, finds two replacement electors, but interviews them first to make sure that they will be "faithless" electors, voting for the other party.

You could come up with a few variations on the theme for interest, but basically, you have electors that win the vote, but die before doing their one official act, which is casting their electoral vote, and somehow the state governor finds a way to change the election outcome in the course of replacing the electors.

To make a movie about it, you would have to fill in a whole lot of plot lines, but I wonder if such a thing is even legally possible. I wonder what provisions there are for replacing electors? There are enough of them that I'm sure it has come up, but never in a controversial situation where their vote could change an election.

ETA: A quick google found lots of sites discussing death of candidates, but not much about the death of electors. I did see a reference that in the election of 1820, James Monroe lost a total of four electoral votes from states he won because one of his electors was a faithless elector, and three others died before the election, and were not replaced.
 
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Dumb All Over said:
It makes no sense to me why the faithless Clinton electors believe this tactic will work. It won't. The 306 electors pledged to vote for Trump will vote for Trump, and will do so enthusiastically.
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It makes sense to me when I consider the idea that Clinton is pretty much a lost cause and that there may be electors pledged to Trump who don't want him to be president. The Republican Party had not exactly been united in their support of Trump, so it is conceivable that there might be electors pledged to Trump who would prefer to vote for someone from the Party establishment rather than Trump. Ire all depends on where the Trump-pledged electors see their loyalty as lying.
 
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