...and Trump sinks his own battleship!

I don't expect this move will have much impact on his base. But, the recent rumor that Trump has been asking key states with Republicans in power, but which voted Democrat in the last election to choose electoral college electors who would vote in his favor instead of as they are legally obligated to vote should sink all credibility Trump has that he gives a care at all for a fair election.

Honestly, I had thought about whether or not this might be a possibility a few weeks back. And, there is some legitimate fear here.

You see, while some states may have laws "forcing" an electoral college pick to vote in accordance with the State's wishes, that doesn't explicitly stop them from voting otherwise. If such electoral college voters were to be emboldened enough to accept the consequences, or convinced that a pardon of some sort might save them, then there wouldn't be anything to stop them. Their illegally cast vote would be counted nonetheless.

In short; the American electoral process doesn't really care how they SHOULD have voted.

This is actually one of the strongest arguments in favor of reforming or abolishing the electoral college in my opinion. It does play a role as a check and a balance of sorts. But, at the same time it is not infallible. I personally don't think that electoral college votes should be cast by individuals. It puts supreme power over the outcome of the vote into the hands of individuals and takes it away from the people and they elected officials. And no individual is perfect.

At the very least, I think the whole system needs a process owned by the state judicial system which validates electoral college votes which has its own set of checks and balances as well. Then, in theory, these votes could be invalidated and either force the state to re-vote, or disqualify that particular vote.

Anyway, the ultimate problem here is simply that if Trump could effect this, it would circumvent the truth. It would no longer matter who won in vote. In fact, it is a move which would invalidate the entirety of the voting system. The people's votes would be without value.

I also tend to think that this is one of the few things which might actually prompt enough individuals to action. If Trump can litigate his way to victory, I doubt the outcry would be strong enough to trigger any sort of widespread unrest. But, if people's vote were just flat out ignored, wholesale, in order to engineer an election outcome, then I could see substantial civil unrest.