County Democratic chair files federal lawsuit over Electoral College.

Vinz Koller has been chair of the Monterey County Democratic party for a decade. He got involved in politics in 2004 after John Kerry lost to George W. Bush, and in 2008, went to the Electoral College to cast a winning vote for Barack Obama. 

He's set to go back to the Electoral College, representing Congressional District 20 in Sacramento on Dec. 19, only this time he's set to cast a losing vote for Hillary Clinton, who won California. 

But Koller isn't going down without a fight. 

Koller filed a lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court of Northern California against Gov. Jerry Brown, Attorney General (and Senator-elect) Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Alex Padilla, calling on the state to overturn a requirement that electors cast votes at the Electoral College for the candidate of their party (in this case, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine).

"Plaintiff seeks the protection to act as a presidential elector not merely by placing a ceremonial vote, but as part of a deliberative body, placing a vote that is most likely to ensure that only a person with the adequate qualifications for office be voted in as president of the United States," the suit states.

Koller joins 10 other electors (there are 538 total) in an effort to give them the latitude to vote for any candidate at the Electoral College—a last-ditch effort to undermine President-elect Donald Trump's victory and block him from getting the 270 electoral votes needed to win. 

"The Electoral College is unequivocally a bad idea," Koller says of how it's applied today—without allowing electors any discretion. "The purpose of this lawsuit is in fact to test the constitutional validity of that point by challenging the state law.   

"In Wyoming, a single vote has three times the power of a California vote. For that we have the Senate, where we already have it addressed. We don’t need to do it twice."

His lawsuit, filed by San Diego attorney Melody Kramer, argues that the founding fathers intended to give the electors the power to use discretion, not just cast ceremonial votes.

The suit quotes liberally from Alexander Hamilton: "The electors would be 'most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.' The electors were created so that they, as a deliberative body, would be 'detached' and less prone to be influenced by the 'heats and ferments' of a raucous election.

"The electors would help ensure 'the office of President [would] never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.'

"The electors create an 'obstacle' to 'cabal, intrigue, and corruption.'"