Trump elector feels the heat
Trump elector Ash Khare (photo provided by Ash Khare)
Pennsylvania’s presidential electors will gather in Harrisburg to cast the state’s 20 electoral votes for Donald Trump next Monday. Until then then, they’ll be bombarded with messages from people urging them to change their minds.
“It is absolutely unbelievable what is happening,” said Ash Khare, a Trump elector and Republican loyalist in rural Warren County, in western Pennsylvania.
Khare said it started right after the election. He went to India for a family wedding.
“I’m in India, and I call my wife and she says, ‘You won’t believe what’s going on. We’ve gotten 5,000 emails.’ I said, ‘you gotta me kidding me.'”
It was just the beginning.
As of the weekend, Khare said he’d gotten 35,000 emails, more than 500 letters, and so many calls he doesn’t answer his home phone anymore.
“I just let it go to voicemail,” he said.
The contact information for Republican electors was in a list the Trump campaign provided to the state that became a public record.
Only handful of people requested it from the Pennsylvania Department of State, but someone posted the contact information on social media, and the campaign to pressure electors built to a fever pitch.
Khare said sometimes he forgets and picks up his phone, and has a conversation with someone determined to sway his thinking.
“I ask them a simple question,” he said. “Do you think Donald Trump would have put my name in [as an elector] knowing that I may change my mind? Not going to happen! I’m a die-hard!”
A survey by the Associated Press found no Pennsylvania electors reconsidering their commitments.
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