Tag: 270

Faithless Elector Calls on Fellow Electors to Abandon Trump
A Trump elector wrote a New York Times Op-ed today vowing to not cast a vote for Trump. Christopher Suprun is one of Trump’s 306 electors, chosen by Texas to represent the people of Texas in casting a vote for Trump on the 19th.  Despite being pledged to Trump by the voters, he has decided that he knows better than the voters who selected him. Some have estimated as many as 7 faithless electors this year who will choose an alternative to Trump.
 
This is nothing new. There have been some 157 faithless electors over the years. In 2004, an elector reportedly made an error when he wrote John Edwards rather than John Kerry. In 1872, 63 electors chose not to vote for Horace Greeley, who died after election day. In every election Nixon ran in, two wins and one loss, at least one elector defected.  
 
7 electors only represents about a sixth of the margin that put Trump over 270. Unless there is a major shift, Trump will still receive the 270 electoral votes needed to win. If there is a major shift, Congress will choose between Trump, Clinton, and anyone else who gets electoral votes.
 
The 7 electors who have so far declared that they will not choose Trump have indicated they will vote for John Kasich. Calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, if they can sway another 30 electors it could create an unprecedented situation.  Congress would then choose one of the top three candidates who received electoral votes.  It would be possible in that situation for Congress to choose John Kasich, making him the next President instead of Trump.
The chances of this happening are slim to none.  Even if enough faithless electors banded together to stop Trump, it’s highly unlikely that the Republican Party would either split their vote allowing Hillary Clinton an opening or go against the will of their own voters. Kasich’s own top adviser has poured cold water on the idea.
Faithless electors have never changed an election outcome.  29 states have laws against faithless electors, but the penalties are minimal fines and none have ever been enforced. What might make 2016 different is that Trump comes into the Presidency with historic unfavorable ratings, Christopher Suprun wrote about his dissenting vote in a New York Times Op-ed, making it very visible ahead of time, and some electors have received death threats. They have more to think about than they might in a normal election year.

The Jill Stein Recount Scam

As of press time, Jill Stein has raised almost $5 million from sad Clinton supporters who actually think her recount plan is a thing. Stein has set her goal now at $7 million.  So the obvious question is can money buy a recount?  The answer is maybe.  The more important question is would it make a difference.

In 2004, the Green Party demanded a recount in Ohio which resulted in Kerry picking up another 300 votes.  Nothing changed.  Stein is looking for recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  Trump won by 36 Electoral College votes, so all three states would have to flip.

Flipping the election to Hillary would require a change of about 27,000 votes in Wisconsin. To give you some perspective, Stein’s total vote count in Wisconsin was only 30,000. Michigan would have to flip 10,000 votes; and the prize, Pennsylvania, would have to go 68,000 votes in the other direction for Hillary to win.  Jill Stein could give Hillary her 48,000 votes in Pennsylvania and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Stick a fork in it, the 2016 Presidential election is done.

Stein’s claims of election hacking stem from a New York Magazine article suggesting that electronic voting could have been hacked.  But the experts cited in that article clarified later that there was no actual evidence that it had been hacked.  If we are looking for a hack, it might be better to look at Jill Stein herself who seems very concerned about helping Hillary Clinton win.  In particular, let’s look at where the money goes when this recount silliness never happens.

According to the Washington Post, which acknowledges that a recount will produce no changes, much of the funds could go toward recount efforts.  However, the $7 million goal and $5 million raised so far exceeds the original cost estimate of $2.1 million.  So that’s a lot of extra dough. In 2004, the Green Party only raised $150,000 to do the Ohio recount.

Stein’s website states that they “cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting.”  The “surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”  That broad category could make the funds available for other Green Party recognition efforts.  In the name of promoting voting system reform, the Green Party could run ads, print billboards, and engage in other marketing efforts all branded with their party name.  That could give them a pretty good jump on 2020.

Just to add one last bit of perspective: Jill Stein’s recount effort has already eclipsed the total of $3.5 million she raised for her 2016 campaign.