By Nicholas Riccardi
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER — Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump on Monday filed documents to become involved in a lawsuit by two Democratic electors trying to be freed of Colorado’s requirement that they vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote.
A federal judge will hear arguments in the case Monday afternoon. It is part of a long-shot effort by a handful of electors to deprive Trump of the presidency by instead casting 270 votes for another Republican when the electoral college convenes Dec. 19.
To do that, electors are trying to strike down laws like in Colorado and 28 other states requiring them to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote. Hillary Clinton won Colorado but multiple Democratic electors in the state want to switch their vote to a still-unnamed consensus Republican to block Trump’s election. Trump won the votes of 306 electors in last month’s election, while Clinton won 232.
Papers filed by Christopher Murray, a veteran Colorado Republican attorney representing Trump, contend the lawsuit “threatens to undermine the many laws in other states that sensibly bind their electors’ votes to represent the will of the citizens, undermining the Electoral College in the process.”
Colorado’s Republican Secretary of State has also filed papers to intervene in the case and argued the electors’ actions are an assault on democracy.
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