WINCHESTER — On Monday, the 538 electors that make up the U.S. Electoral College will convene in the capital cities of all 50 states to vote on who will succeed Barack Obama as the nation’s president.

Virgina’s 13 electors will likely vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the state in the Nov. 8 election against Republican candidate Donald Trump.

“With pride,” said Kathy Shupe, the Democratic elector for Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, which includes Winchester and Frederick and Clarke counties, as well as a large chunk of Northern Virginia.

The Electoral College is, perhaps, one of the least-understood aspects of America’s political structure. A process, not a place, it is established by Article Two of the U.S. Constitution and gives electors the power to determine the president and vice president, each of whom must receive 270 electoral votes to win.

If no candidate receives at least 270 votes, the matter is decided by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Each political party active in a state chooses electors, the number of which is determined by population.

In 48 states, the party that wins the most popular votes sends its electors to cast ballots. This is called “winner-take-all.” In Nebraska and Maine, electors vote according to how their congressional district voted, not necessarily the state as a whole.

Virginia has 11 congressional districts, each of which gets one electoral voter. Two at-large voters are chosen by state party committees.

Five parties registered to have electors in Virginia for the 2016 election: The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Green party, the Libertarian Party and “McMullin voters,” who are supporters of Utah Independent Evan McMullin.

Each of those parties, through local channels (local party conventions), chose 13 electors to vote should their candidate win the most popular votes in the state.

On Nov. 8, the Democratic Party won in Virginia, so its 13 electors get to vote in Richmond on Monday.

‘Faithless’

Following an election in which Clinton received over 2.5 million more popular votes than Trump, but Trump won 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, the Electoral College has been appearing in national headlines with words such as “faithless,” “abolish” and “Russian interference.”

“Faithless” is a term used to describe an electoral voter who rejects his or her party candidate. It rarely happens, but is not unheard of. Much attention has been given to calls made on Republican electors to not vote for Trump.

“You absolutely could do it,” said Democratic elector Debra Fitzgerald.

Debra Fitzgerald, 59, is an educator living in Harrisonburg and is the elector for the 6th state Congressional District.

She said Wednesday that formal voice votes are cast in the state senate chambers, followed by the signing of “a million pieces of paper.”

But there is nothing that forces an elector to vote for the candidate they were sent to vote for. They can vote for, quite literally, anyone they want to. “You can say another name.”

There does not seem to be much chance, though, that 37 Republican electors would renege on their commitments to vote for the party nominee.

How an elector votes and how an elector should vote are matters of contentious national debate. Some believe electors should be free to choose whomever they want. Rather than calling these electors “faithless,” they are referred to as “Hamilton electors,” referencing Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers who believed in electoral autonomy as a safeguard against demagogues.

Hacking

One of the primary ways Trump opponents are reinforcing justice regarding this idea is by referring to the CIA’s recent announcement that the Russian government — specifically naming President Vladimir Putin — sought to influence the election in Trump’s favor by hacking into the Democratic National Committee computer network, something Congress plans to investigate.

Fitzgerald and Shupe have both added their names to a list of electors demanding a briefing on the Russia hack before the vote Monday.

Republican elector for the 6th state Congressional District Anne Fitzgerald (no relation to Debra Fitzgerald) said Wednesday she finds outrage over the Russian hack — which she does not deny — “more than a little outrageous.”

“Do I like that foreign governments are involved? No,” she said. But, “If [Clinton] had followed the rules, her server would not have been compromised.”

Anne Fitzgerald, 41, of Staunton, said she received letters leading up to the election encouraging her to vote differently should her party win in the state,

“I think you have to respect the will of the people,” she said. To vote a different way is to “basically override that will.”

“Will” is something opponents of the Electoral College refer to when they call out the fact that a candidate who lost the popular vote by a fairly wide margin won anyway.

“It hasn’t really mattered in modern times,” Debra Fitzgerald said. “Now it matters.”

One person, one vote?

Those who wish to abolish or amend the Electoral College point to the reality that electoral votes in small states represent fewer people than electors in densely populated states, and so provide them more power.

A popular example of this is Wyoming’s three electors, representing about 187,923 residents each, as compared to California’s 55 electors, representing an average of 677,355 each. Even though California has more votes, an individual’s voting power is significantly less than that of a person in Wyoming — challenging the concept of one person, one vote.

Shupe said the college should be amended and “weighted appropriately,” but not abolished. Debra Fitzgerald agreed, saying that “you really have to consider whether this is still the way to do things.”

Anne Fitzgerald said she “has a lot of faith and confidence” in the Electoral College, which gives greater voice to rural areas so they are not drowned out by cities.

Arguments aside, for the 2016 election the college is as it is, which is why “faithless” electors have become such a buzz in the news cycle.

Up to one year in jail

In 21 states, electors can vote how they wish with no repercussions. In other states — which have used their laws to change the Electoral College through the centuries — there are penalties involved with voting outside party lines.

In Virginia, to vote for someone other than your party’s candidate is a Class 1 misdemeanor, Debra Fitzgerald said, punishable by up to one year in jail and $2,500. “It’s not trivial.”

Federal law holds no penalty for faithless electors.

The push to reach and appeal to the suddenly spotlighted electors is not something only Democrats are doing.

Shupe, 59, of Sterling, said she has been approached by a member of the Green Party asking her to convert her vote into one for Jill Stein, that party’s candidate.

She declined, but said electors “have to vote their conscience” and “put country before party, period.”

Hailing from a military family and married to a Republican hydrogeologist who worries about climate change, Shupe said she can see how Republicans would struggle with Trump as head of their party. But she acknowledges that he won the election.

“I don’t ever want it said that I don’t.”

Attempts to contact Republican elector for the 10th Congressional District James G. Huber on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

— Contact Onofrio Castiglia at ocastiglia@winchesterstar.com