“Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple. It actually is simple but it isn’t easy: it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. Not to mention that the whole infrastructure of abstinence based recovery is shrouded in necessary secrecy. There are support fellowships that are easy to find and open to anyone who needs them but they eschew promotion of any kind in order to preserve the purity of their purpose, which is for people with alcoholism and addiction to help one another stay clean and sober.

The electoral college does not vote until December 19th. We have 40 days.

What does this mean?

Right now, the presidential election results are only a PROJECTION of the election outcome. They are PRELIMINARY RESULTS. A candidate still needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means that more than 50% of the voters wanted her for president. The electoral college shouldn’t guarantee an override of the public’s opinion– and it doesn’t have to.

There are 21 states that do NOT restrict which candidate the electors vote for. Out of these 21, Hillary lost the following:

As you can see, these states are worth 166 electoral votes. As it currently stands, Hillary Clinton is projected to receive 232 votes. Trump is projected to win 306. This means that 37 votes need to be taken away from Trump to bring him down to 269. Hillary Clinton needs 38 votes ADDED to win 270. These electoral voters can also abstain, which means that they can refuse to vote for either candidate. If 37 of the voters within these states abstain then no candidate will have reached the required 270. In this case, the vote would be taken to the House.

Trump won Pennsylvania, a state that typically votes blue, by less than 100,000 votes. While it is highly unlikely to get all 20 electoral voters to cross party lines and vote democrat, it also isn’t impossible to convince a few of them to be “faithless electors.” We only need to convince 38 out of the 166. That is 23%. There are SIXTEEN states we need to focus our attention on.

A move like this would be unprecedented. However, as we all saw on November 8th, odds don’t guarantee reality. Trump had a less than 20% chance of winning, yet given the circumstances, enough people came together and made it happen. We can make this happen. 

Ask yourself this: What do we have left to lose? We can stay complacent and accept that this country will be run by a racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, ablest bigot, or we can at least try. 

How?

SPREAD THE WORD. Trend #NotMyPresident to let people know that we do not accept being led by a man who does not care about our wellbeing. Email your professors, email the dean of your colleges. The last thing a university wants is negative press. Millenials can take a stand, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the only ones. Church-led events helped bring a lot of disillusioned voters to the polls. Spread the word in any way possible, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even in person. Stage a peaceful protest. Hand out flyers. Let the people around you know that you don’t accept this man as your leader when he won’t even accept you as a citizen with your designated rights.

These 166 people need to face the consequences of electing this man. 

Is this possible?

Yes, I wouldn’t have made the post without doing my research. Read the following paragraphs, taken from archives.gov:

Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for?

There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. (The 16 states listed above do NOT restrict their electors to this rule.) These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.

SOURCE: https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html

Can Hillary still receive votes from the electoral college even though she’s conceded?

Think about it, Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. All of the electoral voters didn’t immediately vote for President Obama the second he conceded. The election still ended up being 332 votes to 206. Not 538 unanimous votes for Barack Obama.

“For starters, it doesn’t matter if a losing candidate concedes, as far as the Electoral College process goes, according to Amy Bunk, director of legal affairs and policy at the Office of the Federal Register, among other experts.”

SOURCE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/20/can-losing-presidential-candidate-actually-challenge-election-results/s42xw8h3pcwFcXx7rsS14I/story.html

Conceding does not take a candidate’s name off of the ballot that the electoral voters see. In the past, “faithless electors” have voted for the projected losing candidate, or even voted third party. 

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector#List_of_faithless_electors

ARIZONA (9 Electors): J. Foster Morgan of Glendale, Walter Begay Jr. of Kayenta, Bruce Ash of Tucson, Sharon Giese of Mesa, James O’Connor of Scottsdale, Jerry Hayden of Scottsdale, Robert Graham of Phoenix, Edward Robson of Phoenix, Carole Joyce of Phoenix, Alberto Gutier of Phoenix, Jane Pierpoint Lynch of Phoenix

ARKANSAS (6 Electors): Jonathan Barnett, Jonelle Fulmer, Keith Gibson, Tommy Land, John Nabholz, Sharon R. Wright

GEORGIA (16 Electors): Not Listed, previous reports of a likely faithless elector

IDAHO (4 Electors): Layne Bangerter, Caleb Lakey, Jennifer Locke, Melinda Smyser

INDIANA (11 Electors): Stephanie Beckley, Jamestown; Daniel Bortner, Bedford; Laura Campbell, Carmel; Jeff Cardwell, Indianapolis; Donald L. Hayes, Jasper; Randall Kirkpatrick, Ligonier; Ethan E. Manning, Indianapolis; Macy Kelly Mitchell, Indianapolis; Edwin J. Simcox, Muncie; Fishers Kevin Steen, Muncie; Chuck Williams, Valparaiso

IOWA (6 Electors): Not Listed

KANSAS (6 Electors): Not Listed

KENTUCKY (8 Electors): Not Listed

LOUISIANA (8 Electors, includes alternates): Chris Trahan, Candy Maness, Lloyd Harsh, Jennifer Madsen, Charles Buckels, Christian Gil, Louis Avalone, Constance Diane Long, Kay Kellogg Katz, Verne Breland, Lennie Rhys, Glenda Pollard, Garret Monti, Scott Wilfong, John Batt, Raymond Griffin

MISSOURI (10 Electors, missing 2): Tim Dreste, Jan DeWeese, Hector Maldonado, Sherry Kuttenkuler, Casey Crawford, Tom Brown, Cherry Warren, Scott Clark

NORTH DAKOTA (3 Electors): Not Listed

PENNSYLVANIA (20 Electors): Not Listed

SOUTH DAKOTA (3 Electors): Marty Jackley, Dennis Daugaard, Matt Michels

TENNESSEE (11 Electors): Not Listed

TEXAS (38 Electors): Marty Rhymes, Thomas Moon, Carol Sewell, John Harper, Sherrill Lenz, Nicholas Ciggelakis, Will Hickman, Landon Estay, Rex Lamb, Rosemary Edwards, Matt Stringer, Shellie Surles, Melissa Kalka, Sandra Cararas, David Thackston, Robert Bruce, Margie Forster, Scott Mann, Marian K. Stanko, Tina Gibson, Ken Muenzter, Alexander Kim, Virginia Abel, John Dillard, Tom Knight, Marian Knowlton, Rex Teter, Stephen Suprun Jr., Jon Jewett, Susan Fischer, Lauren Byers, William Greene, Mary Lou Erben, Arthur Sisneros

WEST VIRGINIA (5 Electors, missing 1): Ron Foster, Patrick Morrissey, Ann Urling, Mac Warner

SOURCE. If anyone can find information on those not listed, please let me know.

ALSO a friendly reminder that a concession is not set in stone, and can be reversed:

“…a spoken concession does not necessarily deny a candidate office if there is a drastic reversal in the vote count…

It is exceedingly rare for a concession, once issued, to be retracted; BUT such an event occurred in the United States 2000 presidential election, when Democratic candidate Al Gore, Jr. telephoned Republican George W. Bush to concede the contest. Gore was apparently unaware of the close vote count in the state of Florida, and when he realized it, he proceeded to cancel his concession address.”

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concession_(politics)

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