Reflecting the large-scale unease of people regarding Donald Trump becoming the next President of the US, a petition against the controversial Republican businessman on online campaign portal Change.org has become the largest ever in the website’s history.
Having gathered more than 4.6 million signatures as of now, the petition, titled “Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19”, is basically urging the members of the Electoral College to vote in favour of Clinton rather than Trump. This, despite the fact that the latter had won more states than the former in the countrywide elections on 8 November.
The petition is the brainchild of “political activist” Daniel Brezenoff.
One must remember that the final vote to elect a President in the US is carried out by the Electoral College. The Electoral College for the 2016 elections will be held on 19 December, after which the new President will assume office in January.
The petition, with its appeal, is seeking to reverse the long-standing convention of the US democratic system, wherein the electors of the College go as per the popular results in their respective states.
Brezenoff’ raison d’etre for his petition is that the popular vote has been won by Clinton, and that a controversial personality like Trump would be “unfit to serve” as the President.
Being a “faithless elector” (which is what one is called in such a case) basically implies voting against the party one is pledged to. This is against the law in certain states, but in others the elector has complete freedom to exercise his/her choice.
Interestingly, a report by Politico, points out that there has been an attempt by Democratic electors to persuade their Republican counterparts to not vote for Trump in the penultimate Electoral College vote on 19 December.
However, the efforts would most likely not be able to swing the requisite Republican electors away from Trump so as to deny him the Presidency.
Rather, they seem to be geared more towards exposing the shortcomings of the Electoral College system (an institution which may not align with the national popular vote in Presidential elections) – especially by the Democrats, and facilitate its reformation or revocation altogether.
In fact, Brezenoff, in his petition, calls the institution “undemocratic” too, but also perceives it as a means to achieve a “democratic result”.
People have also taken to Twitter to express their support for the petition:
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