DC Deciphered

So after all that noise, it turns out there were more defector electors from the Hillary Clinton side than from the Donald Trump side.  Five electors defected from Hillary (four from Washington state & one from Hawaii), while two defected from Trump (both from Texas).  There were three additional attempted defections on the Hillary side, but those electors were either rebuffed (and changed back to Clinton) or removed/replaced under state faithless elector laws. I’m thinking (hoping) it was probably easier for the Hillary electors to change their votes, since they likely felt they could do so without any real consequences, as compared to the Trump side where it really mattered.  Even if the Trump electors felt confident there wouldn’t be enough defectors to alter the outcome, each of them knew that their vote for (or against) Trump sent an important signal about the strength of his upcoming Presidency.  Still, this number of faithless electors is large by modern historical standards, so I wonder if this is us dipping our toes in the water of chaos to come in future votes now that we’ve opened this door . . .