Teenage electoral college member becomes seventh voter to go against Donald Trump
Levi Guerra from Washington state vowed to break her pledge to try and unseat the president-elect
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Your support makes all the difference.A teenage member of the electoral college will be the seventh person to break ranks by not voting for Donald Trump, adding to a small but growing pool of so-called "faithless electors".
Washington state member, 19-year-old Levi Guerra, has said she will join the “Hamilton electors”, named after Alexander Hamilton, a renegade group that believes the 538 electors have a moral responsibility to prevent demagogues from entering the White House.
"I promised those that elected me that I might do the whole lot I might to make sure Trump didn’t grow to be our president. To maintain this promise, I consider I need to forged my vote for an alternate Republican," she said at a press conference.
Ms Guerra is one of 12 electors in the state who will have been mandated to vote for Hillary Clinton, who won in their state on 8 November.
Ms Clinton has a lead of at least 2.5 million votes in the popular count but the electoral college system, starting with the Founding Fathers, guarantees a winner takes all system in each state.
The Democrat won 53 per cent of the vote in Washington compared to Mr Trump’s 37 per cent.
But instead of voting for Ms Clinton, the teenager plans to cast her vote for a more “moderate” Republican, hoping other party members will follow suit. She has not named which Republican that will be.
Ms Guerra is now the third faithless elector in her state who is demonstrating a protest vote against Mr Trump. They join four electors in Colorado who have vowed to vote in the same way. Art Sisneros from Texas, a Republican elector, said he would also defect as it would “bring dishonour to God” to vote for Mr Trump.
The co-founder of the Hamilton electors in Washington, Bret Chiafolo, faces a $1,000 fine from the state for not following party ranks. He is reportedly considering filing a lawsuit to challenge the fine, arguing that any attempt to force electoral college members to vote against their conscience was unconstitutional.
The group acknowledged that their effort to unseat Mr Trump was a long shot, but they felt obligated to take a moral stand.
The last time more than one elector broke ranks in Washington was in 1912, when the Republican vice presidential candidate had died before the vote took place.
A separate petition, which has been signed by more than 4.6 million people, urged faithless electors to break ranks with Mr Trump and vote for Ms Clinton instead, hoping enough of them could overturn the result.
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