Lucas, we are gearing up to fight the dangers of a Trump presidency with
everything we’ve got. Today, we have one last, long shot at preventing
the most dangerous and hateful administration in our nation’s history.
We hope you’ll help us fight for it.
On Dec. 19, the electors to the Electoral College will cast their ballots to elect the next president. In many states, these electors are not bound by the state’s total vote and can choose to vote for whomever they want with little or no legal consequence.
Hillary Clinton is likely to win the majority vote by 2 million votes or more. The electors have a civic duty to elect the candidate chosen by the people, and they have a moral obligation to elect the one who is most fit to serve.
Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos to the Electoral College electors: Honor the popular vote, stop Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.
The electors should consider the following when casting their votes:
- Clinton won the majority vote. With millions of absentee and mail-in ballots yet to be counted, it appears Clinton could win the majority by more than 2 million votes. The Electoral College, designed by the framers to protect southern slave states, is outdated, unnecessary, and wholly unfair. In just the last 16 years, two candidates who won the popular vote – Al Gore and Hillary Clinton – have not served as president. In fact, in the last six out of seven presidential elections, Democrats won the popular vote although Republicans have claimed Electoral College victory in three. The will of the people is being subverted by a broken and biased system that doesn’t count everyone’s vote equally.
- Widespread and intentional voter suppression aimed at people of color. Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, many Republican-controlled state legislatures have enacted measures like eliminating and reducing early voting as well as enacting discriminatory photo ID requirements and restrictions on voter registration to keep Democratic and minority voters from the polls. In Wisconsin, where Clinton lost by only 27,000 votes, 300,000 eligible voters lacked the strict forms of ID needed to vote, and the state saw its lowest turnout in 20 years, especially in Black communities. In North Carolina, there were 158 fewer early voting polling places in Black communities, and black turnout was down 16 percent. And across the country, Black people were forced to wait in line twice as long on average as white people. It's entirely possible that without voter suppression, Clinton would have won the Electoral College along with the popular vote.
- Russian interference. Throughout the campaign, it was clear the Russian government was actively working to influence the outcome in Trump’s favor. State-sponsored Russian hackers provided troves of damaging emails and documents to WikiLeaks and other websites. Paid Russian trolls disseminated fake news across US social media sites to spread misinformation favorable to Trump. And though Trump lied about it, his campaign was in direct contact with the Russian government throughout the election. Trump has well established connections to Russia through many business dealings, and he spent considerable time during the campaign praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now that Trump has access to classified intelligence and the nuclear codes, we can’t trust what he will do with them. His presidency is a clear threat to American democracy and our national security.
Tell the Electoral College electors: Honor the popular vote, stop Trump
and elect Hillary Clinton.
His supporters, the media, and most in our government may have declared
Trump the next president, but he did not win the majority support of the
American people under ordinary circumstances. Given the extraordinary
context, the Electoral College electors have one last chance to right
this terrible wrong, and cast their votes against Trump.
We want to be perfectly clear that persuading the electors to reject Donald
Trump is a long shot. Despite the points raised above, the electors will come under tremendous
pressure to put Trump in office. It’s a massive uphill battle,
but we need to appeal to the morality of the electors to do what’s
right and refuse to put the power of the presidency in the hands of a
fascist demagogue like Donald Trump. People of conscience will stand on
the right side of history and continue doing everything in their power
to stop Trump.
Tell the Electoral College electors: Honor the popular vote, stop Trump
and elect Hillary Clinton.
Thanks for all you do,
Josh Nelson, Deputy Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets