The Electoral College will finally vote this Monday

Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump outside Independence Hall November 13, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(Image credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images)

The 538 members of the Electoral College will convene in their respective states Monday to vote for the United States' next president, a process that is usually little more than a legal formality following the popular vote tally on Election Day. This year, however, last-ditch efforts are ongoing to convince at least 37 Republicans to become "faithless electors" who vote for someone other than President-elect Donald Trump, who lost the popular contest to Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes.

Attempts to oust Trump in this manner are not expected to succeed. "I suspect literally no one voted for electors in November with the goal of empowering them as people to exercise independent judgment," explains Rob Richie of FairVote. "People voting for Trump wanted his associated electors to vote for him. Same with people voting for Clinton. So [I] think expecting them to act against that mandate now is a highly questionable position."

But whatever happens, don't expect to find out before the end of this year: The Electoral College votes will not be counted until Jan. 6 in a joint congressional session, at which point members of Congress may choose to challenge individual electors or statewide results.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.