For Electoral College, some zing

CHICAGO -- The Electoral College's 538 members gather Monday at 50 state capitols to cast the ballots that matter the most when it comes to electing a U.S. president.

Normally sedate affairs that pass with little notice, this year's proceedings have been injected with a bit of drama and a dash of uncertainty thanks to a campaign by a small group of electors to overturn the results of Election Day.

The attempt to deny Donald Trump the presidency by trying to persuade Democratic and Republican peers to back someone else is almost sure to fail. But it feeds still more rancor into what already has been a divisive political season.

Behind the drive is a group calling itself Hamilton Electors, led by two Democratic electors from Western states. The name is a nod to Alexander Hamilton and his explanation of the need for the Electoral College, an entity the first Treasury secretary said existed to make sure that "the office of the president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications."

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Bret Chiafalo, an Electoral College member from Washington state who is a Hamilton Electors organizer, calls the institution the nation's "emergency brake" in a video that outlines the group's goals. "If only 37 Republican electors change their vote, Donald Trump will not have the 270 electoral votes he needs to be president," he says. "Thirty-seven patriots can save this country."

Chiafalo and others who have joined the effort want the Electoral College returned to what they say is its original concept: a deliberative body that uses the popular vote as a guide.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that it has interviewed more than 330 electors and that "Republican electors appear to be in no mood for an insurrection in the presidential campaign's last voting ritual."

Those interviews found widespread Democratic aggravation with the electoral process but little expectation that the rush of anti-Trump maneuvering can stop him.

Still, people going to the typically ho-hum electoral gatherings have been drawn into the rough-and-tumble of campaign-season politics. Republicans are being besought to revolt in a torrent of lobbying centered on the arguments that Clinton won the popular vote and that Trump is unsuited to the presidency. Most of it is falling on deaf ears, but it has also led to some acquaintances being made across the great political divide.

"Let me give you the total as of right now: 48,324 emails about my role as an elector," said Brian Westrate, a small-business owner and GOP district chairman in Fall Creek, Wis. "I have a Twitter debate with a former porn star from California asking me to change my vote. It's been fascinating."

Even a leader of the anti-Trump effort, Chiafalo of Everett, Wash., calls it a "losing bet" -- but one he says the republic's founders would want him to make. "I believe that Donald Trump is a unique danger to our country and the Founding Fathers put the Electoral College in place to, among other things, stop that from happening," said Chiafalo, 38, an Xbox network engineer who backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.

The Electoral College was created by the nation's founders as a compromise between those who favored a direct popular vote and those who wanted lawmakers to pick the president.

This year, Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, earning 306 electoral votes, with 270 needed to win. Clinton carried 20 states and the District of Columbia, earning 232 electors.

One of the drivers for the attempt to negate the Electoral College result is that by running up big margins in populous states like California and New York, Clinton beat Trump by more than 2.6 million ballots in the nationwide popular vote. That's the largest gap ever for a candidate who didn't win the White House. Clinton is only the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote and finish second in electoral votes, joining Andrew Jackson in 1824, Samuel Tilden in 1876, Grover Cleveland in 1888 and Al Gore in 2000.

letter on hacking

The turmoil among electors was stirred last week after President Barack Obama directed U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver a report on Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails, and The Washington Post reported that the CIA concluded that the meddling was intended to benefit Trump.

Those developments have prompted 62 electors -- all but one of them Democrats in states Clinton won -- to sign onto a letter requesting a briefing about the hacking. Some Democrats have also called for the Electoral College voting to be pushed back until more is known, something that would take an act of Congress.

None of the 62 -- more than a quarter of the Democrats forming this year's Electoral College -- have necessarily joined in the call for Republican electors to back a consensus candidate that Republican and Democratic electors might support.

That doesn't have to be Clinton. Members of the Hamilton Electors have mentioned former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, all Republicans, as potential alternatives.

Yet another effort to sway electors is playing out in full-page newspaper ads this week in states that voted for Trump. Paid for by an online fundraising drive started by a California man opposed to Trump, the ads call for electors to reject Trump because he would "present a grave and continual threat to the Constitution, to the domestic tranquility, and to international stability."

There's no constitutional requirement that binds electors to the candidates who won their state, but most are required to do so under state laws. That's never mattered or been seriously tested because there have been few cases of so-called faithless electors -- the last occurrence was in 2004.

Nashville lawyer Tom Lawless, who chose Marco Rubio in the primaries, described his vow to cast his electoral vote for Trump in blunt terms. "Hell will freeze and we will be skating on the lava before I change," he said. "He won the state, and I've pledged and gave my word that that's what I would do. And I won't break it."

State law and practices vary for electors. In Washington state, electors face up to $1,000 in fines if they ignore the results of the state's popular vote. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a long-shot bid by Chiafalo and another elector to void the penalty.

U.S. District Judge James Robart said the electors had presented a case far too speculative to warrant blocking state law.

A federal judge in Colorado rejected similar arguments Monday, calling a bid there "a political stunt," and a Denver judge on Tuesday held that Colorado's nine electors must vote for Clinton because she won the state's popular vote.

But even in states where electors don't take an oath to vote a certain way or don't face legal ramifications for stepping out of line, the heavy expectation is for them to ratify the results. As much as they don't want Trump in office, some Democrats are as reluctant as Republicans to go rogue.

"We lost the election," said John Padilla of Albuquerque, N.M., a Democratic ward chairman. "That's how elections are, and you shake hands with your opponent and you get on with what you have to do and support your candidate."

Trump supporters and Republican establishment figures say it's all an academic conversation because there's zero chance of success and the effort is being pushed by Democrats as a way to undermine the businessman's legitimacy for the office.

"There are some people who will just not let go," said John Hammond, a Republican National Committee member from Indiana. "It will be a fruitless effort."

Chiafalo, a co-founder of Hamilton Electors, said he understands the uphill battle they face. "We've stated from day one this is a long shot, this is a Hail Mary," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by John McCormick of Bloomberg News and by Calvin Woodward, Rachel La Corte, Scott Bauer, Summer Ballentine, Erik Schelzig, Morgan Lee, Bob Christie, Michael Biesecker, Emily Swanson, Monika Mathur, Gene Johnson and Cathy Bussewitz of The Associated Press

A Section on 12/16/2016