Dear Electors:

Well, here you are. You have the chance, some of you, the ones who live in states where your faithlessness will matter, to change the outcome of this election. To take it away from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and boot it to the House of Representatives, where perhaps someone more qualified might be considered. And you, by casting your electoral vote for someone other than either of these two horrendous choices, you can allow the House to consider that person for President.

Much has been made of the idea that the Electoral College violates the will of the people. It of course does no such damn thing. It is meant, as Hamilton wrote in Federalist 39, to make certain that the election of the President is determined both by the people AND by the states, so that the President is chosen both Nationally and Federally (and if you don’t grasp this distinction and why it matters, please don’t bother commenting).

But of course, as stated in Federalist 68, the function of the College is also to prevent “foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

It’s rather plain that Russia has done this. Oh, not that Trump is a willing puppet in their pay, as such, but certainly he is their candidate of choice. I can only ask if we really feel that it is prudent to elect a man that Russia so ardently desires to see in the Oval Office? You are the safeguard against that:

“But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. … Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias.”

That’s YOU!

And if we must discuss the will of the people, I would point out that the primary election proved that neither Trump nor Clinton is the choice of the people of Kansas (where I live). That would be Sanders and Cruz. And Kansas electors are NOT BOUND by the state to vote for anyone but who they think is the best choice. So, Kansas Republicans, why NOT vote for Ted Cruz. I mean, what have you got to lose? It’s not as though the Republican-controlled House is going to elect Clinton, right? If you vote for Cruz and DON’T throw it to the House, we get Trump. And that’s almost certainly what’s going to happen. Never in history have rogue electors decided an election. But then again, never in history have we elected a man as unqualified as Donald Trump. But hey, at least you won’t have been to blame for him. But if enough of you go rogue then maybe — MAYBE — we get Cruz. Or Kasich. Who for all their faults are at least semi-sane.

Come on, Kansas. And all you other good Republicans and Conservatives out there. Let’s make history  in a good way.

From Somewhere In Orbit