Harvard professor: Republican members of Electoral College are considering turning on Trump
Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig said Tuesday that 20 Republican members of the Electoral College are thinking about voting against President-elect Donald Trump, Politico reports. Lessig is a co-founder of Electors Trust, a group that offers free legal counsel to any member of the Electoral College who wants to vote for a candidate different from the one who won their state. The constitutional scholar, who briefly ran for president in 2015, told Politico the number of electors who have told his group they are considering breaking from Trump could tip the scales away from the president-elect.“Obviously, whether an elector ultimately votes his or her conscience will depend in part upon whether there are enough doing the same,” Lessig said. “We now believe there are more than half the number needed to change the result seriously considering making that vote.”According to Politico, it was not clear whether any of the electors leaning away from Trump are from states with laws that bind them to vote for the state’s election winner. There have been bids by Democratic electors to challenge those state laws, as part of a movement called the Hamilton Electors, which is pushing for the Electoral College to rebel against Trump’s presidency.Though he won the Nov. 8 election with 306 electors to Hillary Clinton’s 232, Trump must still capture support from 270 of the electors to win the presidency. Ten electors, including four from New Hampshire, recently signed a letter asking that the members of the Electoral College receive an intelligence briefing on whether there is an ongoing investigation into ties between Trump and possible attempts by Russia to tip the election. The electors meet on Dec. 19 to select the next president.
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