RNC keeps close tabs on Electoral College vote [View all]
Source: Politico
The Republican National Committee is overseeing an expansive whip operation designed to lock down Donald Trumps Electoral College majority and ensure that the 306 Republican electors cast their votes for the president-elect.
Two RNC sources familiar with the effort said the committee with the assistance of state Republican parties and the Trump campaign have been in touch with most of the GOP electors multiple times, and has concluded that only one is a risk to cast a vote against Trump on Dec. 19, when the Electoral College meets.
The RNCs elector head count, the sources emphasized, is standard practice in presidential election years. But this year it also serves as an early-warning system for potentially wayward GOP electors amid an intense push by Democratic electors to convince 37 of their Republican counterparts to jump ship. The Democrats are hoping that dozens of GOP electors many of whom were picked at local conventions and party meetings dominated by Trumps opponents are already primed to resist Trump.
The state Republican parties in the states that went for Trump are heavily invested in this process, said one of the RNC sources. Its a matter of personal pride for a state party chairman and a state party to ensure that all the electors that their people elected vote, and vote in the manner in which theyre supposed to.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/rnc-trump-electoral-college-232537