2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: It should be no shock to anyone if the Electoral College elects someone other than Trump [View all]onenote
(44,662 posts)And as of today, there is absolutely no reason to think its going to happen.
For the electoral college to elect someone other than Trump 270 or more of them would have to (1) vote for Clinton or (2) vote for someone else other than Trump.
Clinton has won states with 232 EV as of now, but there's no guarantee she might not lose one or two of them. (At least one elector from a state she won announced prior to election day that he would not vote for her). So it would take at least 38, possibly more, of the electors from states won by Trump to shift from him to her. Given that the electors are selected by and loyal to the political party of the candidate that won the election in their state, that seems a very very very longshot notion.
Equally longshot -- that 270 electors come together to support a single candidate. Keep in mind that the electors don't meet all together as a unit and discuss/deliberate. They show up at their respective states and basically cast their votes and go home. So the likelihood of a common plan is small. Moreover, as noted, the repub electors are loyal to the repub party and the Democratic electors are loyal to the Democratic party. If you think Nancy Pelosi's daughter, an elector from a state that voted for Clinton by around a 2-to-one margin, is casting her vote for anyone other than Clinton, I've got a bridge to sell you.
So, notwithstanding all the huffing and puffing, it would be not just a little shocking but shocking to a previously unheard of degree in electoral history, if the EC "elected" someone other than Trump. Now, it also would be shocking, but not as shocking, if enough repub delegates cast their votes for other candidate or abstained, thereby denying Trump the needed 270. But that would result in the EC electing someone else -- it would only result in the election being thrown to the House where it is almost certain that Trump, assuming he has more electoral votes than anyone else (but still less than 270) will be selected.