Christopher Suprun, an elector from Texas, writes in an op-ed published in  the  New York Times on December 6, saying he will not cast his vote for Donald J. Trump.  Mr. Suprun urges his Electoral College colleagues to "unity behind a Republican alternative."

Mr. Suprun – it is not clear how he got to be an elector – cites Federalist No. 68 for guidance.  He does not, however, refer to the following passage from No. 68:

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Federalist No 68, attributed to Alexander Hamilton, makes it clear that the Founding Fathers sought, as much as possible, to avoid "tumult and disorder" in the election of the president.  In furtherance of this aim, the Constitutional Convention agreed that the electors will meet in their own states, not assemble in one body, to reduce as much as possible the "heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people" (emphasis added).

Apparently, Elector Suprun, enabled by the New York Times, has discarded the major aim of the Electoral College – to provide for the orderly transition of executive authority – heedless of the possibility that he would transform our Electoral College tradition into an incendiary invitation that could "convulse" our nation in political "tumult and disorder."

Hillary Clinton, in the third presidential debate, October 19, provided the appropriate term for this invitation to trash Electoral College tradition: "horrifying."