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A petition calling for the Electoral College to make Hillary Clinton president instead of Donald Trump has attracted more than 4.6 million votes on Change.org. The makes the petition the largest in the website’s nine-year history.

By convention, electors of the Electoral College are expected to cast their ballots for the presidential candidate who secured the majority of votes in their state. In the election, Trump won 30 states, securing himself 306 electors to Clinton’s 232 so on December 19 it is widely expected that the majority of the Electoral College will cast its ballots for Trump, sealing the presidency for the Republican candidate.


In the popular vote, however, Clinton leads Trump by more than 2.5 million votes, with more ballots yet to be counted. This isn’t the first time a candidate securing the popular vote has lost out in the Electoral College – the same happened in the Bush versus Gore election in 2000, where Democratic candidate Gore won half a million more than Bush but only managed to secure 266 Electors versus Bush’s 271.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsivity, bullying, lying, admitted history of sexual assault, and utter lack of experience make him a danger to the Republic,” wrote Daniel Brezenoff, who set up the petition.

Can the Electoral College elect Hillary Clinton?

The short answer to this is yes. Technically. Nothing in the American Constitution nor in federal law requires electors to cast a ballot according to the results of the public vote in their state.

Some states do have laws that fine so-called faithless electors ”who don’t vote in line with the popular vote", but more than 20 states impose no penalty at all for doing so. According to Brezenoff’s petition, 14 states where the majority vote is Republican do not impose penalties on faithless electors. He’s calling for the 149 electors in those states to turn their backs on the Republican candidate and vote for Clinton instead.

However, according to FairVote, no elector has ever changed the outcome of an election by voting against their party’s designated candidates. In fact, of the 157 faithless electors who have voted since the Electoral College was created in 1787, 71 of those votes were changed because the original candidate they were meant to be voting for died before the Electoral College cast its votes.


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The last time a faithless elector went back on their state’s popular vote was in 2004. In the Bush versus Kerry election, an unknown elector from Minnesotan, who had previously pledged to vote for the Democratic candidate Kerry actually voted for his running mate, John Edwards for president and vice president. It appears this vote may have been cast by mistake.

So far, seven faithless electors have declared their intentions to vote against their party’s candidate line in their state. However, every single one of these electors is representing states which voted for Hillary Clinton. Instead the electors plan to vote for an alternative Republican candidate to show their lack of faith in a Trump presidency. If they do vote against their party lines, the seven electors – three from Washington state and four from Colorado – will do nothing to help secure the presidency for Clinton.