The Washington Post

In last-shot bid, thousands urge electoral college to block Trump at Monday vote

Pressure on members of the electoral college to select someone other than Donald Trump has grown dramatically — and noisily — in recent weeks, causing some to waver but yielding little evidence that Trump will fall short when electors convene in most state capitals Monday to cast their votes. 

Carole Joyce of Arizona expected her role as a GOP elector to be pretty simple: She would meet the others in Phoenix and carry out a vote for Trump, who won the most votes in her state and whom she personally supported. 

But then came the mail and the emails and the phone calls — first hundreds, then thousands of voters worrying that Trump’s impulsive nature would lead the country into another war.

DYI:  Ok Washington Post you asked for it....Donald Trump as impulsive?  You don't build a multi-billion dollar real estate/entertainment company from a one million dollar seed money from his father all based on impulsive decision making.  Hillary Clinton was so much better?  Libya and Syria - you have to be kidding - a total debacle.

The role of elector has intensified this year, in the wake of a bitter election in which Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 3 million votes and the revelation of a secret CIA assessment that Russia interfered to help Trump get elected.

DYI:  Robert Samuels - the author - you just had to throw in the popular vote with no understanding why our founding fathers created the electoral college system. Simple here is a map by Business Insider that tells the story where 50% of our population lives.    

Ditch the electoral college system and go to direct democracy you can easily see where the predominate campaign stops would focus.  States such as Montana, North and South Dakota, Alaska, Arizona or Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire etc. would have either no representation or very little from a new president since they have such marginal populations.  

If you were to think like a politician running for president your campaign strategy would change dramatically.  Here is how the campaign would unfold.  Once you secured your party's nomination immediately campaign in the States with the least amount of population.  Why?  Your the president for all the people would be your campaign slogan but what you are doing is getting those rallies over with early.  The middle part of the campaign would be the secondary population based cities[not shown on map] - near the end of the election cycle the big money would be spent along with campaign stops where fifty percent of the population lives.  The reality those large population centers would predominately elect the president.  Live outside of those areas especially with states that don't even have secondary cities your vote would not count for squat!  At least with the electoral college even the most rural States have some representation.

The Russians are coming - the Russians are coming!  Amazing every time the top brass of our intelligence agencies testify before Congress - under oath - they all dance around never stating categorically that the Russians are doing the hacking.  Of course the author Robert Samuels doesn't even mention how damning the contents are to the Democratic party no matter who hacked or leaked the contents to Wikileaks.

 Norman Eisen, a former ambassador to the Czech Republic who has served as legal counsel to the Obama administration, began calling electors to explain that their job is not necessarily to certify the results but to have a reasonable discussion over whether the public made the right decision.

DYI:  Trying to pull out all of the stops in an attempt to sway the electors.  I doubt this will be successful; its real intention is an attempt to marginalize the Trump Administration.  Today is the day for the electors to vote - we will know soon enough.

He looked to see Federalist No. 68, written by Hamilton to describe the need for the electoral college.

“We have been getting a civic lesson we weren’t prepared to get,” Koller said. “They gave us the fail-safe emergency brake, in case the people got it wrong. And here we are, 200 years later. It’s the last shot we have.”

DYI:  Got it wrong??  I've followed the Clinton's escapes and out right criminal behavior for over 30 years Trump is a breath of fresh air.  I'm not saying Trump is perfect and he will not be - but compared to Hillary, unless you have been living under a rock - is the deplorable.  Thank God she didn't win.

What we have here is nothing more than a hit piece.  Any wonder why the Washington Post along with all of the other mainstream press are in a death spiral for readers and viewers?  The question is who will be the first to go out of business?  New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, NBC, MSNBC your guess is as good as mine; but make no mistake one of these will go under within the next 3 to 5 years as internet based news takes their readers and viewers away.

DYI