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Wash. Electors Call For Republican Electors To Vote For Trump Alternative

Wash. Democratic Electoral College members Levi Guerra and Bret Chiafalo explain a plan to encourage Republican electors in other states to vote for an alternative candidate to Donald Trump.
Will James
/
knkx
Wash. Democratic Electoral College members Levi Guerra and Bret Chiafalo explain a plan to encourage Republican electors in other states to vote for an alternative candidate to Donald Trump.

A handful of Democratic Electoral College members are hatching a plan to deny Donald Trump the presidency. 

Four Democratic electors from Washington and Colorado are leading the effort to persuade 37 Republican electors in other states to vote for someone other than Trump.

They're calling themselves "Hamilton Electors," claiming to honor Alexander Hamilton's vision of the Electoral College as outlined in Federalist Paper 68.

Two Washington electors made their pitch Wednesday afternoon on the steps of the capitol building in Olympia. They said their goal is to elect a different Republican as president.

Levi Guerra, 19, is an elector from Warden, Wash., in Grant County. She said she believes there are Republican leaders that the country could unify behind.

"As a Democratic elector, it is not an easy thing for me to pledge my vote to a qualified Republican alternative," she said. "But as an American, I know that it is the right thing to do.

The group has not settled on a Republican consensus candidate, but names like Colin Powell, John Kasich, Jon Huntsman and Michael Bloomberg have come up as possible alternatives.

If those 37 Republican electors abstain or vote for an alternative candidate on Dec. 19, Trump would fail to get the 270 electoral votes he needs, and the U.S. House of Representatives would choose the next president. 

The group has acknowledged that the plan is unlikely to succeed.

A Seattle native and former KNKX intern, Simone Alicea spent four years as a producer and reporter at KNKX. She earned her Bachelor's of Journalism from Northwestern University and covered breaking news for the Chicago Sun-Times. During her undergraduate career, she spent time in Cape Town, South Africa, covering metro news for the Cape Times.
Will James is a former KNKX reporter and was part of the special projects team, reporting and producing podcasts such as Outsiders and The Walk Home.