UPDATE: Baoky Vu, the elector who has resigned due to opposition to President-Elect Trump, will be replaced by John Padgett, Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
After more than a month of emotional pleas, Georgia’s members of the Electoral College will vote at noon in the state capitol. Presumably, all 16 of Georgia’s Electoral College votes will be cast for President-Elect Donald Trump. You can watch it live here.
Georgia is one of 21 states that does not bind electors to the state’s popular vote by law, which resulted in a deluge of requests from around the country to vote contrary to Georgia’s citizens.
Rachel Little, an elector from Georgia’s 7th District and former Chairwoman of the Gwinnett GOP, has been documenting the bizarre experience on Facebook. As of midnight last night, she has received 83,288 emails, at a rate of 10 a minute. That doesn’t include the 978 pieces of physical mail she has received.
Kirk Shook, an elector from Oconee County, told 11 Alive he has also received over 80,000 emails, the vast majority of them from anti-Trump voters. Ms. Little has said that most anti-Trump requests are from New York or California.
Both offer assurances that all 16 of Georgia’s electors will vote for Trump.
Randy Evans, a high-profile Republican official and an elector, described the push for unfaithful electors as a “well-funded, well-organized operation.”
That operation became highly visible with this video of Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, and C-list Hollywood actors begging Republican electors to vote for anyone but Trump. (No mention of Democratic electors voting for an alternative Republican, of course.) Personalized videos for individual electors were even posted, though they have since been removed. One misidentified the gender of a Kansas elector, marking Mr. Sheen’s most confused moment since this.
One elector, Baoky Vu, resigned in August after promising not to vote for Trump. He will be replaced by the Georgia GOP with an as yet unnamed elector.
Protests have formed outside the state capitol building. Our own George Chidi has live video of them here.
A link of all 16 of Georgia’s Republican electors can be found below:
- Bruce Allen Azevado
- Brian K Burdette
- Lott Harris Dill
- John David Elliot
- James Randolph (Randy) Evans
- Bobbie D. Frantz
- Linda D. Herren
- Rachel Blackstone Little
- Deborah (Debbie) M. McCord
- Michael Neil McNeely
- Mary L. Padgett
- Neil L. Pruitt
- Joshua Kirk Shook
- Frank B. Strickland
- Baoky Nguyen Vu (Resigned, and replaced by Chairman John Padgett)
- John B. White