According to some email and snail mail I've received--all always asking for donations--in such, especially in such, a predicted situation, George Soros will pay protestors to raise hell until O the Great and Powerful declares martial law and and, due to a proclaimed "national emergency," either serves a third term or becomes a banana republic president for life.
Me dino won't say this ain't gonna happen but I've never donated to such mailings. I'm not too keen on paying for the real estate purchases and Caribbean cruise vacations of scaremongers if not out and out scam artists.

Wasn't that Roger Lea MacBride?

That might be great for us. We would have permanent grid-lock and a real excuse for the congress not to do anything as if they needed it.

There is a chance we could get a Biden/pence, or Biden/Kaine administration. How messed up would that be.

Unfortunately Jonathan Gruber was right: " the American people are too stupid to understand it" And that was in reference to Obabacare. No one would understand or even pay attention to this.
But I am glad you brought it to the Gulch's attention.

This also explains why a write-in candidate can win a mayor's office, but not the Presidency. You are not voting for the candidate but for a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for a candidate. They can vote for whomever they wish. Republican elector Patrick Lea McBride voted for John Hospers in 1972, giving the Libertarian Party their almanac footnote 1 electoral vote.

In reality, we should be having wide-open, highly publicized contests for electors, with people (or slates) running for those offices. Instead, the electors are chosen by internal processes at the Party level.

Allow me to suggest that you read the Constitution of the United States.

ORIGINALLY--
"The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President." -- Article II Section 1

HOWEVER… The 12th, 20th, and other Amendments made technical changes to this. For one thing, the 12th recognized the reality of political parties and removed the likelihood that the President and Vice President would be from opposing factions -- which, actually, could be a pretty good situation, if you stop to think about it…

This is the kind of arcane information that the government hides on websites:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/char...

Ok, I thought this Gulch crowd would know, and you pretty much got it, but here is what I found:
“If no candidate receives a majority of Electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most Electoral votes. Each state delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most Electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.”

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/07...

As I understand the rules for this happenstance they are:
1. If no candidate receivceives the necessary electoral votes, the House of representatives will selects the President from the top three electoral vote getters.
2. Each state get one vote.
3. Majority wins.
It is even more fluid than one thinks. The members of the electoral college are not bound by the vote of the stae. They can vote for whoever they please. (this may have been changed recently, but I can't find out if it has been). This has appened at lease once in the past. George Washington received all of the electoral votes. after that , I think Jefferson won all of the staes but an elector thought only GW should have the honor of wining all of the electors so voted for another person.
One other time there was a large portion of the electors challenged and a committee of 5 was selected to certify the electors. Three from one party, two from the other. The president so elected was termined ol' 3 to 2. They have not done anything like that since.

This info is based on the best I coujlld locate in my files qquickly so it may be wrong. Your welcome to throw rocks if ou find out I'm wrong. If you do, please publish your finding here so all may learn.

But what would stop them from doing so - mid-term elections ? I don't have confidence that voters' memories are that good.

I have the same question. I imagine it would give them a chance to pick an "establishment" candidate, but if they went too far from whoever won the plurality of the popular vote and electoral college, people would be very angry.The sensible thing to do would be to pick who won the plurality, but I suspect they would not do that.