Republican electoral college member will not vote for Donald Trump on Dec 19; will there be a twist in the tale?

It seems a presidential win hasn't been enough for Donald Trump to silence his critics. The president-elect has had opposition from various quarters, including his own Republican Party, during the campaign period and even after almost a month since defeating Hillary Clinton, Trump continues to face resistance.

Christopher Suprun, a Republican member of the Electoral College said in a New York Times op-ed on Monday (December 5) that he is not going to cast his vote for Trump on December 19, when the body will officially vote for the president.

In the article titled "Why I will not cast my electoral vote for Donald Trump", Suprun said a president-elect should not be disqualified over policy disagreements or because they did not win the popular vote. He said he will not vote for Trump on December 19 for he thinks the latter is "someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office".

Suprun, a paramedic, said the last Republican president George W Bush, despite his imperfection, had led the U.S. in tragic times in the wake of the 9/11 attacks but he saw Trump failing to unite the country and driving a wedge between the people.

In his sharp dig at the president-elect, Suprun said the former attacks the cast of a television show like "Saturday Night Live" for being "biased" and tweets all the time but took two days to sympathize with the Ohio State University campus attack victims. According to Suprun, instead of discouraging civil discourse, Trump "chooses to stoke fear and create outrage". Trump's tweet describing the Ohio university attacker as a Somali refugee who shouldn't have been in the U.S.A. had shocked a lot of people.

The elector from Texas also mentioned about Alexander Hamilton, one of the forefathers of the U.S.A. who provided the states with a blueprint to vote. He said an Electoral College would decide if the candidates are qualified and Trump has shown that he did not meet the standards one expected him to. Suprun said the college can't ignore Trump's public statements - the way he has made them - and hence it should reject him.

"The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country," Suprun wrote.

Five hundred and thirty-eight members of the Electoral College will meet officially in their home states to vote for the next American president. The winning candidate must have the backing of 270 members and Trump is well on course to become the successor to President Barack Obama by getting 306 votes. Hillary has 232 votes.