2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: So first faithless voter is voting for Sanders in Maine [View all]gklagan
(123 posts)about how the few faithless electors might vote I have never seen anyone credible suggesting that the necessary number of Trump electors would switch their vote to Clinton and give her the election outright. All I have seen is that some might vote for a sane republican (yes, those do still exist). The hope being that enough Trump electors might defect to deprive him of a majority and then it would go to the House for a vote, where they pick from the top 5 EC vote getters.
If we are going to talk about rational, outcome based, voting I think that ensuring the House has plenty to pick from is critical to preventing DT from winning. I cannot imagine a plausible scenario where the current House would give the presidency to Clinton (or Sanders for that matter). I can see them possibly giving the presidency to another republican who is not DT, an outcome that would at least preserve the Republic long enough to have another election.
If electors have coordinated an effort to stop DT it means they are not giving it to Clinton either. I've contacted my electors and they are fanatics. To dissuade them from voting for trump would required a guarantee that Clinton would not walk away the winner. So if the goal is to stop DT from bringing on Armageddon then Voting for a sane republican makes at least as much sense as voting for Clinton, if not more.
Voting for Sanders in the EC, obviously, is just foolish.