Texas elector threatens not to vote Trump

CPUd

CPUd

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Texas elector threatens not to vote Trump

Another Republican member of the Electoral College wavers in his commitment to back the GOP nominee.


Chris Suprun is a member of the Electoral College from Texas, a state the GOP can reliably count on to deliver votes every four years to the Republican presidential nominee.

But this year, with Donald Trump sitting atop the ticket, Suprun is warning he might not cast his electoral vote for the GOP standard-bearer. Indeed, he won’t rule out throwing his vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if Trump doesn’t moderate his demeanor.

“I’m not a professional politician. I’ve got no training on this one,” said Suprun. “The nominee is … saying things that in an otherwise typical election year would have you disqualified.”

It’s a startling admission two months before an election, and another sign of the lingering discomfort among Republicans with Trump’s candidacy. Another Republican Texas elector, Art Sisneros, told POLITICO last month that he had initially considered casting a ballot for someone other than Trump, part of a larger plan to sow chaos, but decided against it when other collaborators failed to earn spots in the Electoral College. And when a Georgia Republican elector, Baoky Vu, told a local reporter that he might consider a write-in candidate rather than backing Trump, he quickly resigned his post. Vu later told POLITICO that he had intended to highlight the existence of the Electoral College as a “safety valve” against candidates like Trump.

The Electoral College, the constitutional body conceived by America’s founders as a check on voters, meets five weeks after Election Day to cast the formal ballots for president and vice president. States send one elector from each congressional district and two representing the state at large.

Though it originally played an outsize role in the process, it’s long since morphed into a glorified perch for party regulars, donors and insiders to ratify the results delivered by voters. In fact, 29 states have laws forbidding electors from bucking the will of their voters, according to FairVote.

But 21 — including Texas — have no binding restrictions.

Even in states without laws, “faithless” electors have been extremely rare in modern history and have never had a decisive role in any presidential election. They’re unlikely to this year either, unless Trump claws back into contention and battles Clinton to a near-draw.

Still, it’s remarkable for a likely member of the body to openly discuss taking a vote of conscience two months before an election. POLITICO interviewed 20 Republican electors earlier this month and found a slew of Trump critics among them, but none who planned to vote against him if he won their state.

For Suprun, one of the first responders who rushed to the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the reluctance to cast a vote for Trump is due to the nominee’s security rhetoric. Suprun characterized Trump’s approach on military issues as: “The generals are going to commit war crimes because I tell them to.”

Suprun said he ran for elector with the intention of supporting his party’s nominee. But he lamented that the institution had become a “check-the-box” routine. He also argued that his home — Texas’ 30th Congressional District, centering on Dallas — is likely to support Clinton. That, he argued, should be a factor in his obligation to represent the district in the Electoral College.

“These constituents aren’t supporting Mr. Trump,” he said, arguing that the Founding Fathers charged electors to “take a look at all the facts, figure it out and make the right call.”

Could Clinton be the right call for Suprun?
Click to expand...

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-electoral-college-texas-chris-suprun-227422
 
hatersgonnacat.jpg
 
You again? Let's see left bias Politico. A topic that no sane person would take seriously. Oh and spam.
 
I was thinking an electoral college revolt would be more likely to favor Trump, not criminal Hillary.
 
spudea said:
I was thinking an electoral college revolt would be more likely to favor Trump, not criminal Hillary.
Click to expand...

Everyone likes Trump except the establishment.

And by establishment, I mean people who dont like Trump.
 
Amazing how Hitlery supporters are allowed to spew their spam all over the forums with impunity. Thread after thread...
 
I've always wondered what would happen if an elector was "faithless" in one of the 29 states that forbid it. The constitution says that the states only have the power to choose their electors in the manner they see fit, it doesn't say they can force them to be bound. It would be an interesting court case.

I'm an elector for Darrell Castle and Minnesota makes me be bound to him should he win.
 
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