MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2020) While in the 2016 US presidential election a historic number of electors defected and voted contrary to their state's popular vote, so-called faithless electors are unlikely to become a deciding factor that could change the projected victory of Joe Biden this year, US legal experts told Sputnik.
While many states continue to finalize and certify the results of the US presidential election, a number of major US news networks, including CNN, Fox News and the New York Times, have projected victory for Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
But incumbent US president Donald Trump has so far refused to concede and instead initiated a number of legal efforts to challenge the election results in several key battleground states, while alleging wide-spread election fraud.
Under the US electoral college system, a presidential candidate who secures 270 electoral votes becomes the winner of the presidential election. But ordinary US voters only cast ballots on election day to decide which presidential candidate wins that state's popular vote.
Once the election results have been certified in all the states, usually before December 8, each state then selects electors to cast the state's ballots in the meeting of electors to be held on December 14. On January 6, the vote count is finalized and the results are certified.
The presidential candidate who wins over 270 electoral votes cast by the electors, who represent each state's electoral votes, becomes the next US president.
Electors chosen by each state are usually required to pledge to vote for the presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote on the election day. But only 33 states and the Washington District of Columbia have laws in place that prohibit the state's electors from voting against the presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote.
This leaves room for electors to defect and vote against the presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote in the rest of the states.
2016 ELECTORS DEFECTION TARGETED TRUMP
The 2016 election was the first time in over 100 years when multiple electors voted against the presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote and became "faithless electors."
A total of 10 electors defected in 2016 and seven of their ballots were validated. Among the seven validated faithless electors, five were Democrat electors who voted against their state's presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, while two of them were Republican electors who voted against Trump.
The record number of faithless electors in 2016 did not change that year's US presidential election results. But the fact that faithless electors could vote against a presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote raised concerns that a similar scenario could happen this year and may alter the results of the presidential election after Trump refused to concede.
However, the reasons behind a large number of faithless electors in 2016 are very different from the scenario today, US legal experts explained.
"I think they were hoping that some Trump electors would join them and the election could be thrown into the House of Representatives, which might then either choose Clinton (unlikely, but the argument was that they should because she won the popular vote) or choose a Republican other than Trump (like John Kasich)," Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law school, told Sputnik.
In response to Trump's victory over Clinton on election day in 2016, a Colorado elector, Michael Baca, started a campaign to call on both Democratic and Republican electors to defect as part of his efforts to stop Trump from becoming the US president.
However, Baca's plan failed, as only two Republican electors voted against Trump.
DEMOCRAT ELECTORS UNLIKELY TO VOTE AGAINST BIDEN
The limited impact of faithless electors in 2016 resulted from how electors were selected in each state.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the two most common methods the states have adopted are nomination by state party convention and by state party committee. Generally, the parties select members known for their loyalty and service to the party, such as party leaders, state and local elected officials and party activists.
Professor Roosevelt illustrated how the selection process works.
"Each party selects a slate of electors. If Biden is certified the winner of the state, the state appoints the Biden electors; if Trump is certified the winner, the state appoints the Trump electors," he said.
For faithless electors to have an impact on the US presidential election results, the electors chosen by a political party would have to defect and vote against their party's presidential candidate.
If Trump hopes faithless electors could help him alter the US election results, he would have to convince electors chosen by the Democratic party to defect and vote against Biden, Professor Roosevelt pointed out.
"That's how the faithless elector scenario would have to work: a partisan Democrat, likely a party official, would have to decide to vote for Trump instead," he said.
Given how polarized the two US political parties have become, it would be very unlikely for an elector selected by the Democratic Party to defect and vote in Trump's favor, the expert added.
BLOCKING ELECTION RESULTS CERTIFICATION
As there's very little chance for Democratic electors to defect against Biden, Trump's efforts to change the election results have been focusing on stopping states from certifying the votes and naming Biden the winner of those states' popular vote, the expert noted.
"It's almost beyond possible, if Biden ends up with 306 electoral votes, that enough Democratic electors would defect. That's why Trump's lawsuits were trying to block the certification of the vote, presumably in the hope that the Republican state legislatures might then appoint Trump electors. But it doesn't look like those lawsuits are going to work," he said.
In a number of key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the election results are still being certified. Trump's allies have filed lawsuits in all of those states as part of their efforts to halt the certification process.
