Can the Electoral College Accept Foreign Influence?

By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News

17 December 16

ith the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA in unilateral agreement with a “high degree of confidence" that the November 8, 2016, U.S. presidential election was influenced by a foreign actor, specifically Russia, can the Electoral College vote even proceed?

Should the electors ratify Donald Trump’s victory knowing what they now know, they would – at the very least – be accepting a foreign hand in choosing the President of the United States.

This is a historic moment politically and constitutionally for the country. These are conclusive statements by all major U.S. national security agencies. This is specifically what the Electoral College was created to detect and prevent.

Alexander Hamilton, in creating the foundation for the college, addressed the question directly in his Federalist Paper 68:

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in 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?

– Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 68, 1788

Cast in that light, the current situation is completely unprecedented in the entire scope of American history. Never before have the Electoral College electors been so informed, in such direct and unequivocal terms, that the hand of a foreign actor is influencing the outcome of the election for the highest office in the land.

It is the constitutional duty of all 538 electors to take into urgent consideration the implications of the joint findings of all federal National Security and law enforcement agencies.

Should Donald Trump be denied an Electoral College victory, he is not disqualified from becoming president, it simply remands the matter to the House of Representatives. House members certainly have both public and classified avenues to discovery of the facts. Something the electors do not have.

No presidential election in history compares even remotely to the one now upon the nation. The electors are duty-bound, constitutionally, to take into full account the extraordinary statements made by the joint National Security and law enforcement agencies.

It is of grave importance to the nation that the Electoral College electors put the security and integrity of Office of the President above political obligation.

Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.