Coercion

Novels are a like a big game of "what if?"  When I found that Electors did not have to vote as they had pledged to vote, I felt the situation sounded ripe for mischief, and I thought, I wonder if.... Interestingly, when I began shopping Faithless Elector around, the rejection comments were along the lines of, "this is too far-fetched," and "it could never happen."  


I have recently come across Robert M Alexander, reporting for CNN, who noted that during the 2012 election, an investigation by the Associated Press prior to the election revealed that as many as 5 Republican Electors expressed uncertainty regarding whether they would actually vote for Mitt Romney if he carried their state.


Moreover, in the fiercely contested 2000 election, it turns out that many electors were the target of vigilant lobbying campaigns. Some even received thousands of e-mails; at least one Elector received a death threat.  A group founded by two college seniors, called Citizens for a True Democracy, even published the contact information of 172 Republican electors online and asked people to urge them to put "patriotism before partisanship" and give their electoral votes to Al Gore.

So while Faithless Elector plays at “what-if?” it turns out this is no child’s make-believe game, but is (potentially) deadly earnest.  What passes in the pages of Faithless Elector hasn’t happened, isn’t meant to happen…but it could happen.

The full text of Alexander's report is here:  Rogue Electors Threaten Election's Integrity