The mechanics of the meetings of the members of the Electoral College aren’t spelled out in the Constitution but in Chapter 1 of Title 3, United States Code:
§ 7. The electors of President and Vice President of each State shall meet and give their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment at such place in each State as the legislature of such State shall direct.
For those of you who have been playing at home, tomorrow is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December and where they meet depends on your state’s laws. In Illinois that’s governed by 10 ILCS 5/21-4:
Sec. 21-4. Presidential electors; meeting; allowance. The electors, elected under this Article, shall meet at the office of the Secretary of State in a room to be designated by the Secretary in the Capitol at Springfield in this State, at the time appointed by the laws of the United States at the hour of ten o’clock in the forenoon of that day, and give their votes for President and for Vice-President of the United States, in the manner provided in this Article, and perform such duties as are or may be required by law.
Typically, the voting of the electors is pretty quotidian. Like everything else in this highly contentious presidential cycle tomorrow’s proceedings may not be, at least in some states. Here in Illinois, of course, all of our electors will vote for Hillary Clinton.
At Outside the Beltway Steven L. Taylor has helpfully outlined the possible scenarios that might unfold:
- The electors act as messengers, delivering to their state capitals the electoral votes corresponding to the candidate who won the given state (as per the above, with 306 going to Trump and 232 to Clinton).
- The same as the above, but with a handful of faithless electors who wish to make a political point, but with nowhere close to enough to threaten the 270 Trump needs to win.
- Thirty-seven, or more, electors could defect from Trump to vote for neither Clinton nor Trump, but instead for Candidate X (or splitting the 37 votes for X, Y, Z, etc.). This would throw the election to the House of Representatives (with the top three vote-getters as the choices for the chamber).
- Thirty-seven Trump electors could vote for Clinton, tying the contest at 269-269, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives.
- Thirty-eight, or more, Trump electors could defect to Clinton. If she could hold her 232 in that case she would have the 270 needed to be elected president.
- Two-hundred and seventy electors defect and choose Candidate X.
“Faithless elector” is the term applied to electors who vote for a candidate other than as prescribed under state law. The largest number of faithless electors in any presidential cycle was in 1872 when all 63 Democratic electors voted for a candidate other than the Democratic candidate. That candidate, Horace Greeley, had been inconsiderate enough to die shortly after the election.
Entire state delegations, e.g. Pennsylvania’s in 1832, have defected, but all in all faithless electors have been rare.
Of the scenarios outlined by Dr. Taylor above, I think that #2 is by far the most likely which means that the Electoral College will have elected Donald Trump to the presidency. In my estimation a distant second most likely is #3 in which case anything goes.
Don’t be lulled into believing that the controversy will end with the voting of the electors. I feel confident in predicting that the next four years will be as filled with controversy as any presidential term in American history.
I hear Cheney, who should be in a cell at The Hague supports
Tillerson.
Worrying.
Trump cannot allow himself to be manipulated by the neocons and their fellow travelers. Of course their agenda is not Putin’s. And perhaps Cheney realizes he was had.
But if Trump does go hawkish, we can at least depend on a vivified left to hit the streets which it would never have done against Clinton.
I am sure that having anything other then (1) or (2) will be a crisis and result in blood on the streets.
Having the electoral college vote will not finish the process. Congress still has to count the votes. Technically, if both the house and senate agree to object to a state’s vote, the votes from that state will not be counted. So you need 2 faithless R senators and 24 faithless R representatives and you could throw the election into congress. Any guesses whether someone will start a campaign to do that?
To prevent possible future crisis, perhaps reform of the electoral college to get rid the “human element” is in order. Perhaps something as simple as turn the electors from real people into a “legal fiction”, or clarify that state legislatures can specify electors have a fiduciary duty to vote according to the results of the rules specified by the state legislature.