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The attempted Clinton-CIA coup against Donald Trump
GOP electors under siege: Electoral College members receive death threats, creepy Christmas cards and pressure from Hollywood to dump Trump at tomorrow's vote
  • Members of the Electoral College, especially GOP members casting a vote for Donald Trump, are being pressured to pick someone else
  • Those interviewed in recent days report receiving death threats, thousands of emails and Christmas cards - pleading for a vote change - in the mail
  • Republican electors are pushing back, saying that they're protecting the country from big states dominated by liberal elites

By NIKKI SCHWAB, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 13:14, 18 December 2016 | UPDATED: 00:43, 19 December 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...llege.html

Quote:Members of the Electoral College, especially those GOP electors poised to cast a vote tomorrow for Donald Trump, are being pressured and threatened to pick someone else.

Electors talking to various news outlets report receiving death threats, thousands of emails, individualized messages from a Hollywood actor and creepy Christmas cards.

'I never can imagine harassing people like this. It's just f***ed up,' Jim Rhoades, a Republican elector from Michigan told Politico. 'I've lost a bunch of business,' Rhoades, who owns a home inspection service, continued.

One Texas Republican elector said he's been bombarded with more than 200,000 emails, Politico reported as well.

Carole Joyce of Arizona, a 72-year-old GOP state committee member, told the Washington Post she's received emails signed ' Benjamin Franklin' and 'John Jay,' names of the Founding Fathers.

She also received a Christmas card that read: 'Please, in the name of God, don't vote for Trump.'


The New York Post talked to 22-year-old college student Michael Banerian, a GOP elector attending Oakland University in Michigan.

'Somebody threatened to put a bullet in the back of my mouth,' Banerian told the newspaper.

'You don't even have to vote for me,' McKinnon-as-Clinton says, using handwritten cue cards. 'I'm coo,' the actress says, sticking out her tongue.

'Just vote for literally anyone else,' she continues. 'Like, John Kasich, Tom Hanks, Zendaya, The Rock, A Rock.'

And, as a last ditch effort, the Saturday Night Live version of Clinton tells the elector, played by Cecily Strong, to enjoy her holidays.

'But keep in mind. If Donald Trump becomes president. He will kill us all,' McKinnon says.

Actor Martin Sheen, who famously played President Josiah Bartlet on the television show The West Wing, filmed a video where he begged Republican electors not to vote for Trump.

He even recorded versions using individual electors' names.

The group, Unite for America, also recruited Richard Schiff, Debra Messing, James Cromwell, BD Wong, Moby and Bob Odenkirk to the effort.


Some GOP electors are defending their Trump votes by positing them as a broader shielding of rural and small-town America against big-state liberals and its support for the national popular vote leader, Clinton.

But the picture is more complicated.

'Our Founding Fathers established the Electoral College cause those larger states, those larger areas, don't necessarily need to be the ones that rule,' said Mary Sue McClurkin, a Republican elector from Alabama.


In Trump's hometown of New York City, which Clinton won easily, Democratic elector Stuart Appelbaum countered that 'we're electing the president of the entire country,' so 'the will of the entire country should be reflected in the results.'

It's an expected argument given the unusual circumstances of the 2016 election.

Clinton won some 2.6 million more votes than Trump in the nationwide tally.

But Trump is line to get 306 of the 538 electoral votes under the state-by-state distribution of electors used to choose presidents since 1789.

Trump won rural areas, small towns and many small cities, including in states Clinton carried.

Clinton won in the largest urban areas, including in Trump states.

Former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, a GOP elector, said Democrats' strength on the coasts is enough to justify the Electoral College.

'A presidential election decided each time by either California or New York,' he said, would leave voters in Alaska and many other places 'with no voice' in presidential politics.

It's worth noting that Trump didn't just win small states and Clinton didn't just take large ones.

Trump and Clinton split the six most populous states, each winning three, but Trump won seven of the top 10.

Of the 10 smallest states plus the District of Columbia, Trump edged Clinton 6-5. Trump actually ran up his national advantage in midsize states.

But the dynamics highlight the delicate balance in a political structure that defines itself simultaneously as a democracy and a republic.

When the U.S. was founded, some wanted direct election of the president. Others wanted state legislatures or Congress to choose the executive.

Instead the country got a compromise.

The Electoral College was the end result: Each state got a slate of electors numbering the same as its delegation in Congress.

Electors vote, with rare exception, for whichever candidate won the most votes in their state effectively meaning the presidential election is 51 separate popular votes.

'It's such an interesting compromise that gave us the Electoral College, unique to our American system,' said elections law expert Will Sellers from Alabama, who will serve as a Republican elector for the fourth time.

The system gives smaller states an advantage: The number of electors is based on each state's number of U.S. representatives plus two, for each member of the U.S. Senate itself a compromise favoring small states.

So California's 55 electoral votes reflect 53 House members and two senators. For seven states, including Wyoming, Delaware and the Dakotas, those extra two electoral votes bring their total to the minimum of three.

Put another way, Alaska's three electors will cast 0.56 percent of the 538 electoral votes despite casting just 0.23 percent of the national popular vote.

But the advantage doesn't just favor Republicans.

Democratic Nevada makes up 1.12 percent of the Electoral College but cast less than 1 of a 100 national ballots.

The Electoral College-popular vote split, along with Trump's larger-than-life personality and lack of elective experience, has fueled a vocal, but almost certainly futile, movement to deny him the presidency by pressuring electors to vote against him when they convene Monday in the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

In its own investigation, the Associated Press tried to reach all 538 electors and was able to interview more than 330 of them.

Like other news reports, many reported getting tens of thousands of emails, calls and letters asking them to vote against Trump.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"

Joseph Fouche
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The attempted Clinton-CIA coup against Donald Trump - by Paul Rigby - 19-12-2016, 02:36 AM

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