BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana electoral voters say they’ve been inundated with emails, letters and packages of documents trying to persuade them to change their minds about casting ballots for Donald Trump. That doesn’t mean any of the state’s eight electoral voters is expected to make a switch.
State officials expect a quick, straightforward set of votes Monday for Trump in Louisiana, where the Republican president-elect got 58 percent support in the November election.
___
THE ELECTORS
The state has electors chosen from each of its six congressional districts and for two at-large positions. Potential electors are chosen by their political parties, and their names appear on the ballot with the presidential and vice-presidential nominee.
The electors tied to the presidential candidate who wins the state cast the votes in the Electoral College. While Louisiana law doesn’t spell out that the electors have to vote for the winner of the state’s presidential election, Monday’s voters were chosen by the Republican Party and are expected to vote for the party’s candidate.
___
WHERE THEY’LL VOTE
Louisiana’s electors will cast their votes in the state Senate chamber, a meeting open to the public that begins at 11:30 a.m. Secretary of State Tom Schedler will administer oaths of office. After electing a chairman and secretary, the electors will take an individual verbal vote and then sign documents reflecting their decision, according to Schedler’s office.
___
TRYING TO CHANGE MINDS
Like their counterparts around the nation, Louisiana’s electors say they’ve received tens of thousands of urgent pleas from Democrats seeking to derail Trump’s path to the White House. But it doesn’t appear to have changed minds.
Charlie Buckels, a Louisiana elector from Lafayette and state GOP finance chairman, said he’s been besieged with protests - but few are from Louisianians.
“I’m getting emails and letters from people saying they have proof the Russians controlled our elections, saying that Donald Trump is unfit,” Buckels said. “From the tenor of these emails, you would think these people are curled up in a corner in a fetal position with a thumb in their mouth.”
Has any of it changed Buckels’ mind? “Absolutely not at all,” he said.
Elector Kay Katz, a former state lawmaker from Monroe, doesn’t expect any of the lobbying effort to sway Louisiana’s decision-making. Neither does elector Garrett Monti, from Luling.
“Everybody is rock-solid, from this delegation anyway,” Monti said.
___
AP reporter Andrew Taylor contributed to this report from Washington.
___
Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at https://twitter.com/melindadeslatte
Please read our comment policy before commenting.