US
Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton could still be the next
American president if she is chosen today by the electoral college in
the final decision over who becomes US President.
The US Electoral College will choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton today
Six weeks after the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election, the battle
for the White House is yet to be over as the 538 electors formally cast
their votes for either Democratic Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald
Trump on Monday.
Although, technically the President-elect Trump won the electoral college on Nov. 9, officially, he has not been voted for.
Under the US Constitution, the real presidential election takes
place on Dec. 19, when electors meet in the 50 state capitals and
Washington, D.C. to cast their ballots.
To be elected a president, therefore, a candidate must score 270
Electoral College votes, representing 50 per cent plus one vote or a
simple majority vote.
As the electors prepare to vote on Monday, there are reports that
many Republican electoral college members have been besieged by phone
calls and e-mails to vote against Trump.
Clinton’s victory in the popular vote, by a margin of close to
three million but not the electoral vote and controversies about Trump
have generated unusual interest in the electoral college.
Trump needs 270 electoral votes on Monday to claim White House and
his victory in various states in the Nov. 8 election put him in line to
get 306 of the 538 electoral college votes as against Clinton who had
232.
NAN reports that Clinton’s almost three million over Trump’s, made
him the most unpopular president-elect since 1876 and heightening the
tension in recent weeks.
Already 18 notable U.S. actors and other artists have urged
Republican electors to “go down in the books as American heroes” by not
voting for Trump.
One elector has resigned, another said he would not vote while
electors in three states went to court seeking authority to vote as they
please.
The Republican elector from Texas, Art Sisneros, resigned, saying a vote for Trump “would bring dishonour to God”.
Christopher Suprun, a Texas elector, said he would not vote for Trump, who won his state’s election.
“Donald Trump lacks the foreign policy experience and demeanour needed to be commander in-chief,” he said.
In California, a Federal Judge scheduled a hearing on a similar
request from an elector, Vinzenz Koller, who said he could not vote for
Clinton.
Courts in Colorado and Washington have rejected pleas from electors
to be released from requirements to vote as their states did, although
the electors in Colorado appealed the lower court ruling.
The state Supreme Court will have until noon on Monday, when electors cast their ballots, to decide.
On Sunday, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, suggested
that 37 electoral voters bound to Trump could defect, which would be
enough to create at least a tie and send the votes to the House to
decide.
Podesta predicated his argument on glaring allegations that
Russians hacking the emails of Democrats during the election led in part
to Clinton’s loss.
He also argued that members of the Electoral College should have an
intelligence briefing about the hackings before voting on Monday.
“I assume that our electors are going to vote for Hillary Clinton.
“But the question is whether there are 37 Republican electors
who think that either there are open questions about the purported
Russian hackings or that Donald Trump is really unfit to be president
and I guess we will know that tomorrow.”
However, Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National
Committee, said in spite of the mounting pressures on the electors to
vote against Trump “we expect everything to fall in line”.
Priebus, however, confirmed “the only known and so-called
‘faithless’ balloter, who lives in Texas and whose vote goes to Trump
but plans to vote for another, yet-to-be-named Republican.
“But other than that, we’re very confident that everything is going to be very smooth,” he said.
-NAN
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