I'd like to call attention to an email you sent to your email list, so that I can call out your misrepresentation of my words in this communication (Subject: Fwd: [Test] NCGOP Releases Crazy Letters from Democrats to NC Electoral College Members).

You claimed in your December 15 letter that Democrats are "harassing" electoral college members in what "sounds like is a request to overturn an already completed election for their own silly reasons," citing my letter as an example.  

First I will point out to you that the election will be conducted today, December 19 and the votes counted in the US Senate on January 6, so the election is not yet complete and was not complete at the time of my letter or yours.  Regarding alleged "harassment," I maintain there is a clear difference between lobbying elected and appointed political representatives such as in a letter to electors, and harassing them.  Personally I consider your forwarding my personal email address, from a message spent specifically for presidential electors, to your mailing list in this circumstance to be harassment, and I ask you to cease and desist from such actions by you or the North Carolina Republican party, immediately.

You attempted to frame my reasons as "silly" with your puzzling claim that "Dave thinks Alexander Hamilton wrote part of the Constitution FOR Donald Trump."  As will be clear from reading the full letter below (or the Constitution itself), I was not quoting the Constitution, which Alexander Hamilton signed but did not write, but Hamilton's The Federalist letter #68, published March 14, 1788.  It is quite obvious that Alexander Hamilton did not know the specific person of Donald Trump in 1788, and yet described the "talents for low intrigue" and "little arts of popularity" of an unfit candidate, which candidate Trump displays on a regular basis.  I went on to list bulleted examples of these two traits, as well as a summary of why Donald J. Trump is unfit for the presidency, all of which you omitted from your letter.

If you would like to forward my entire letter to your mailing list, sans my personal email address, you are welcome to do so, as it would establish that my reasons are not "silly," that my letter is actually non-partisan, and that citizens have lobbied the electoral college with utmost sincerity from the patriotic desire to see a 45th President of the United States who is fit for office.

Dear Presidential Electors:

I write to you as a citizen to urge you to do your duty when electing the next President of the United States of America. This decision has been placed constitutionally in your capable hands, and I implore you and the other electors to make certain we inaugurate a President fit for office. 

As you may well know, Alexander Hamilton’s The Federalist No. 68 is an excellent resource for understanding the rationale of the Constitutional Convention in using the role of electors to choose Presidents. Hamilton and James Madison, et al wrote Federalist articles to persuade the States to support and sign the Constitution. 

In this letter I will review what Federalist 68 says about your responsibilities as electors, and beseech you to fulfill them in the December 19 electoral vote by not casting your vote for Donald J. Trump for abundant reasons described below. 

Here is how Hamilton describes your capabilities as electors:

”the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”

According to these words of this Founder and signer of the Constitution you are:

·      Capable of analyzing the qualities needed for the office of president

·      Expected to use information and discernment in casting your vote

·      Assumed to use deliberation in your choice – not to automatically rubber-stamp the leader of your state’s popular vote

If you do all these things, you will inevitably cast your vote other than for Donald J. Trump.

Vote for a “Fit Person”

Principally, Hamilton writes that electors must only cast their vote for persons fit to be President:

“…the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President… 

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

It is obvious through Hamilton’s word choice of “in an eminent degree” that fit candidates hold abundant positive personal qualifications, beyond the mere prerequisites for a president, such as age, citizenship, residency (the word “eminent” according to Merriam-Webster means “standing out so as to be readily perceived or noted).”  Being fit for office means so much more than simply age and citizenship.

Donald J. Trump is not “Fit” to be President

In describing candidates who should fall short of the presidency, Hamilton goes on to give characteristics that seem written to depict Donald J. Trump:

“Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.”

I ask you as electors, who could these defects listed in the Federalist better describe than Donald J. Trump?

Regarding “talents for low intrigue:”

·      Candidate Trump threatened his political opponent with imprisonment

·      Candidate Trump brought the alleged mistresses of his opponent [edit: opponent’s spouse] to a nationally televised presidential debate

·      Candidate Trump intimated he would not accept the election results if he did not perceive a “clear result”

·      Etc.

Regarding “the little arts of popularity:”

·      Before declaring himself a presidential candidate Trump was perhaps best known to Americans as a reality television star

·      Candidate Trump launched his political career by insinuating that President Barack Obama was not a US citizen

·      As candidate, Trump built his popularity via a steady stream of outrageous public statements, many of which were either ignorant of or defiant of the Constitution

·      Etc.

I submit that Donald J. Trump is not fit to be President:

·      He displays an unstable temperament

·      He has no experience in public service or office

·      He shows distain toward American institutions ranging from the free press to the independent judiciary, military veterans, and intelligence agencies

·      He is unaccountable for conflicts of interest with his business and/or foreign interests, having spurned providing tax returns or putting assets in a blind trust

·      Etc.

There are many more examples of his unfitness evident from this long presidential campaign and rocky presidential transition, some of them more subjective, moral, or controversial including his statements on race, gender and religious freedom. You can likely name several more disqualifiers using your own “information and discernment,” as Hamilton described.

As a final test of the fitness of Donald J. Trump for the presidency, I ask you individually to think back to the time you first learned about the college of presidential electors – whether this was when you were a student as I was, or as a public servant. Could you have imagined being confronted with a candidate who has done what he has done, said what he has said, presented the (lack of) character and empathy he projects, and then imagined yourself performing this duty for your country by personally declaring him fit for office through the act of casting your electoral vote for him to be president?  If not, then you have agreed that his non-fitness for office is self-evident, and your duty as an elector is clear.

If you are not yet convinced, this spectacularly unusual candidate for President may yet give you more reasons to be certain of his unfitness before December 19.

Resist Foreign Powers

Finally, Hamilton made clear that the electoral college was designed in part to prevent foreign interests from influencing the presidential election:

“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? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. 

According to multiple news organizations, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Donald J. Trump win the presidency.  By not voting for Trump, you protect America’s highest office from Russian influence.

For Whom Should You Vote?

You should vote according to your conscience and considering the interests of your country, state and party.  I personally cast my citizen’s vote for Hillary Clinton, but because you choose the President as an elector, I humbly suggest voting for one of the following:

·      Hillary Clinton (1^st in national popular vote)

·      Gary Johnson (3^rd in national popular vote)

·      Write-in

·      Abstain (if no candidate has a nationwide majority electoral vote, the decision moves to the US House of Representatives)

It is not the purpose of this letter to lobby for a specific candidate, merely a fit one. I urge you to do your duty and cast a vote for a fit candidate for President, and if not you cannot, to not cast a vote. 

There are many possible approaches – including coordinated state voting of electors for another conservative.  I realize the likely consequence of no candidate holding an electoral majority is that the US Republican House of Representatives will ultimately choose a Republican president – ideally a more fit alternative to Donald J. Trump.  I’m willing to put my country above my party, and hope that you, in your Constitutional duty to State and Country, will do the same. As 2016 presidential elector Christopher Supran (Texas) said when announcing that he will not vote for Trump, “I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.”

Please do your duty.

Respectfully Submitted,

Dave Anderson

References:

Hamilton, Alexander, “The Mode of Electing the President,” Federalist No. 68, March 14, 1788.

https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-68

Bowman, Emma, “CIA Reportedly Concludes Russian Interference Aimed To Elect Trump,” National Public Radio, December 10, 2016.  http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/10/505072304/cia-concludes-russian-interference-aimed-to-elect-trump

Suprun, Christopher, “Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump,” The New York Times, December 5, 2016.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/opinion/why-i-will-not-cast-my-electoral-vote-for-donald-trump.html?_r=0