Idaho Secretary of State: Stop Harassing Our Electors

Idaho's Republican electoral college electors have been getting a lot of phone calls both from Idahoans and from other states who are trying to get them to change their vote, and some of the calls are "crossing into what could reasonably be considered harassment," according to the Secretary of State's office.

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By Nathan Brown

Idaho's Republican electoral college electors have been getting a lot of phone calls both from Idahoans and from other states who are trying to get them to change their vote, and some of the calls are "crossing into what could reasonably be considered harassment," according to the Secretary of State's office.

The callers are trying to convince the four electors to change their votes from Donald Trump, the Republican president-elect who won Idaho in a landslide and who also won the Electoral College nationwide even though more people nationally voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"While there is no federal requirement binding electors to their pledge, and while Idaho is one of 21 states that does not have state-level legislation to force an elector to comply, attempting to sway an elector's commitment to their party through insults, vulgar language, or threats, simply lacks civility," Secretary of State Lawerence Denney, who oversees the state's elections, said in a statement. "These are people who have volunteered to represent our state and their party in a process that goes back to the founding of our nation. If the presidential election had been different, the presidential electors would be from a different party and would still deserve the same respect. They don't deserve to be mistreated by someone just because that person doesn't agree with the outcome of the election."

Electors are named by the parties before the election, and the four Republican electors who will be casting the state's votes in the Electoral College are Melinda Smyser, a former state senator from Canyon County; Jennifer Locke, a precinct committeewoman from Kootenai County; Caleb Lakey; and Layne Bangerter, a longtime staffer for U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo who was Trump's state campaign director. All four of them were Trump delegates (or alternates in Lakey's case) at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. They will meet at noon on Dec. 19 to cast their votes for president and vice president.

Denney said some of the incidents he has been made aware of are "disheartening and show a tremendous disrespect for the individuals tasked with casting Idaho's electoral ballots," and asked anyone who wishes to share their opinions to do so respectfully. He also encouraged people to write or email the Secretary of State's office, saying the correspondence would be shared with the electors prior to Dec. 19.

The Electoral College, where each state is represented by one elector for every member of Congress the state has, was laid out in the original U.S. Constitution, with the current process laid out in the Twelfth Amendment, passed in 1804. While the Electoral College was originally envisioned as an independent body that would make its own decision on who the best president would be, most states dropped the system in the early-to mid-1800s. Now, electors are pledged to vote for whomever a plurality of voters in the state choose.

Because every state in the country has at least two senators and one member of the U.S. House regardless of population, small states end up having a greater say per capita than large ones, making it possible for a presidential candidate to lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College. This year's presidential election will be the fifth time in American history where the winning candidate won the Electoral College but definitely lost the popular vote. The last time before this was 16 years ago, when Republican George W. Bush won the presidency even though Democrat Al Gore got more votes.

In U.S. history, there have been 157 incidences of "faithless electors," or electors voting not in accordance with how they were pledged, in American history, although none of them have changed the outcome of an election.

(c)2016 The Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho)

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Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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