Jackson man to cast electoral vote for Trump; others trying to dissuade him

Scott R. Clark can't wait to vote for Donald Trump. That's because he is one of 538 Americans who will have the final say in choosing the next president.

Electors will meet in their state capitals Dec. 19 to cast their ballots.

The Jackson resident and longtime local Republican Party leader is one of Missouri's 10 electors who will meet in Jefferson City to vote for president.

Like his fellow Republican electors in Missouri, Clark is pledged to cast his vote for their party's candidate and now president-elect.

Clark has heard from hundreds of Trump opponents who don't want him to vote for the real-estate mogul.

Since the general election, Clark has received about 300 emails, 50 letters and several text messages urging him to not vote for Trump. One letter even was postmarked from France.

"The letters piled up in my mailbox," he recalled.

"I was getting 47 emails an hour one day," Clark said, adding he read only a few of them. "Some of them were not very nice."

Many of the emails were sent en masse to about 100 electors, whose names were listed in the correspondence.

"It was kind of shocking at first," he said.

Clark said he even received a phone call from a man in California who interrupted his sleep to urge him not to vote for Trump.

The Jackson Republican said he discovered his and other electors' contact information had been posted on a website. Clark said the website subsequently removed his name and contact information at his request.

Since then, communications from anti-Trump supporters has dropped dramatically, he said.

Clark said he won't be changing his vote. He said he pledged to vote for the Republican presidential candidate when he was chosen as the elector for the 8th Congressional District in April, long before the party nominee had been chosen.

"There is certainly a moral obligation," Clark said of his vow to support the Republican candidate.

Grass-roots campaigns have popped up around the country in an effort to deny the presidency to Trump.

Activists have circulated online petitions and used social media in hoping of influencing GOP electors to vote for anyone besides Trump.

In the Nov. 8 election, Trump won 306 electoral votes to 232 for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

To deny Trump the presidency, 37 Republican electors would have to reject Trump -- something most political observers acknowledge is unlikely.

Throughout the nation's history, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged, according to the National Archives website.

The U.S. Constitution established the Electoral College. The number of electors corresponds to the number of senators and congressmen in each state, plus three allotted to Washington, D.C.

There is no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, have such requirements.

Missouri does not have such a statute, Clark said. But he added an elector who went against the wishes of his party is "probably done in politics."

While most Americans view the election as over, Clark said it is "still going on" for him until his electoral vote is cast.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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