The citizens of the United States don’t directly elect the President. Many Americans aren’t aware of this, because the U.S. holds a public vote.
Citizens are actually voting to select or influence electors. These electors vote on their district’s behalf in a process called the Electoral College. This final vote by electors is the binding result, the one our Constitution recognizes as the official mechanism by which the President of the United States is selected. The Electoral College is scheduled to elect the incoming President on December 19th, 2016.
Many citizens mistakenly believe that electors are unable to cast a vote that contradicts their district’s popular vote. They believe the Electoral College process is an archaic formality, with electors serving as glorified administrators who file the votes. This wasn’t the intent of our founders.
“[T]he immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations [...] The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 68
The Electoral College is designed not as a ceremonial body, but a deliberative one. The evaluation of candidates for President by our electors is a constitutional duty, one we’ve ignored amid a series of generally dignified elections where candidates respected the most basic of American norms and values, never requiring electors to break with contemporary tradition.
This year marks a grave difference.
The Electoral College should exercise its authority under the U.S. Constitution and reject Donald Trump’s candidacy for President. Electors could choose Secretary Hillary Clinton, the undisputed winner of the national popular vote by an historic margin, or select a compromise candidate who respects the fundamentals of a free society.
Donald Trump doesn’t disqualify himself by offending my sensibilities as a member of an opposing party. Healthy systems of government are not well-served by opposition parties attempting to delegitimize election results that don’t go their way. If Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Jeb Bush or Gov. John Kasich was the projected winner right now, I would not be writing this op-ed.
Unfortunately, Trump represents a complete anomaly who would destabilize the United States of America in a way that betrays both our citizens and countries across the globe who rely on American stability for economic and diplomatic security.
Our own intelligence community now openly acknowledges that Russia engaged in a hacking operation to sway the 2016 presidential election. A foreign state with a vested interest in undermining our country’s place in the world for its own gain may have just dramatically altered the trajectory of the U.S.
A massive psychological operation, which involved the stealing and disseminating of targeted documents from American political players, was executed with frightening efficiency. The acting Director of the CIA under President George W. Bush spoke out this week, saying, “A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life […] [T]his is the political equivalent of 9/11.”
Rather than taking the findings seriously, as both major U.S. parties are doing, Donald Trump dismissed the U.S. intelligence community and continues to court pro-Russia figures for his administration. Rex Tillerson, his choice for Secretary of State, was personally handed a friendship award by Vladimir Putin.
None of this should be a surprise. Trump ignores expert warnings, flouts basic stabilizing norms, has no quibble with being compared to violent dictators and uses authoritarian language that informed Americans on every side of the mainstream political spectrum find terrifying.
Listing the sins of Donald Trump isn’t necessary. We’re all familiar with them, and there are too many to document here. Trump is exactly the kind of corrupt actor this nation’s founders envisioned when they formed a deliberative body to prevent charlatans from occupying the highest office by entrancing the general public.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that allowing Donald Trump to become President of the United States could lead to the nation’s economic and societal collapse. The framers of the Constitution anticipated this sort of existential threat. It’s why the document establishes a government filled with safeguarding checks and balances.
The Electoral College needs to resume its intended responsibilities, rather than subverting the will of the people by thrusting a strongman into the White House. America may be too fragile to withstand Donald Trump, but the Constitution grants us the ability to never find out.
Our nation’s fate is now in the hands of the electors. All we can do is beg them to save us.