Rogue elector Vinz Koller makes plans for the long haul.

Vinz Koller always knew he was going to vote for Hillary Clinton, so it’s a paradox that the head of the Monterey County Democratic Party found himself in court suing for the right not to cast that vote.

On Dec. 16, Koller took his suit against Gov. Jerry Brown and Secretary of State Alex Padilla to federal court in San Jose. His ask: Don’t enforce the state law requiring him, a member of the Electoral College, to cast his vote for Clinton when electors meet in state capitals across the country at 2pm on Dec. 19.

Koller’s ask of the judge who would hear his case: Issue an injunction preventing the state from arresting and prosecuting him when, as an elector, he voted his conscience by voting for someone other than Clinton. If enough electors on both sides of the aisle threw their weight behind a compromise candidate (for example, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, an apparently more palatable Republican than Donald Trump, that darling pawn of Vladimir Putin) the electors could stall or prevent President-elect Pussy Grabber from taking office.

But if Koller crossed that aisle, under California law he could face three years in prison and the permanent loss of his voting rights.

There Koller sat, waiting in the attorney’s lounge at the courthouse, when the suits rolled in. There were two attorneys there for the GOP and three for Trump. Koller called it a “David and Goliath” moment.

“They were very friendly in a slightly condescending way,” Koller says. “They had those firm handshakes to try to test you or impress you.”

Koller doesn’t believe the suits were there to intimidate him in particular, but instead to send a message to Republican electors in other states: Tow the party line and put Donald Trump into office. If 37 Republican electors throw their united weight behind a compromise candidate, it means Trump might not become president.

“It could be 200 years or it could be four years.”

When members of the Electoral College convened Dec. 19, seven of them defected – a small, but unprecedented, number. (Two electors who’d pledged to vote for Trump voted for Ron Paul and John Kasich; five Clinton electors – but not Koller – went rogue.)

In filing his suit against Brown and Padilla, Koller joined a national movement of so-called Hamilton Electors (because in the era of Lin-Manuel Miranda, anything with Hamilton’s name on it is bound to capture attention) whose aim in the short run is to prevent Trump from reaching the White House by uniting around a more qualified Republican alternative. With the recent revelations that Russian hackers backed by Kremlin affiliates repeatedly tried to access U.S. servers (of the White House, for example, as well as the Republican National Committee), Alexander Hamilton’s writing in the Federalist Papers is more prescient than ever: Foreign powers might seek to gain control of our system of government and “how could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to be chief magistracy of the Union?”

Could Trump be that creature? Absolutely. Could Russia be that foreign power? Definitely.

While U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila declined to give Koller his injunction, saying Koller didn’t face “irreparable harm” without it, Koller says his moves and those of the Hamilton Electors are part of a much longer game. The gist of his lawsuit against Brown and Padilla – a question about the constitutionality of the state’s sanctions against non-conforming electors – is still pending before the trial court.

More to the point, while Koller says he’s never been fond of the Electoral College because of its snobbish and racist underpinnings for existing, this election has proven to him the U.S. should do away with the Electoral College altogether.

“I was hoping this puts into the minds of Republicans the fear that they can’t be sure it would work every time,” Koller says. “If they realize it’s not such a safe bet, maybe they will think, ‘Why not do away with it and go with the popular vote?’

“It won’t serve this round, but it’s possible for the next round this option will exist,” Koller says. “It could be 200 years or it could be four years.”

Here’s hoping it’s four years. Or faster than that.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Monterey County Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.