Vinz Koller

George W. Bush’s victory over John Kerry in 2004 was the first U.S. presidential election Vinz Koller could vote in. The Switzerland native – who moved to Monterey County to study political science at the now Middlebury Institute of International Studies – became a citizen in 2001, and he quickly got involved in the Monterey County Democratic Party. “After that election, I just walked in and said, ‘What can I do, how can I help?’ Three weeks later I was in charge of a campaign. After we lost pretty badly – locally and at the national level – a few of us said, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’”

In his day job, Koller, 53, is director of training and technical assistance at Social Policy Research Associates based in Oakland, providing management consulting to public-sector clients like the U.S. Department of Education. It’s a skill set he put to work as a political volunteer, starting with getting the local Democratic party its own year-round headquarters, and targeting local winnable races.

Koller became chair of the county Democratic party in 2006, a position he’s held for a decade and will relinquish Jan. 1 to Monterey City Councilman Alan Haffa. Koller was selected to represent Congressional District 20 (then District 17) in 2008 to vote for Barack Obama; he’ll return to Sacramento Dec. 19 as one of 538 electors to participate in the Electoral College expected to vote 306-232 for Donald Trump. He filed a federal lawsuit Dec. 9 challenging the “ceremonial” nature of the process, calling on state officials to let electors vote for the candidate of their choosing.

Weekly: Your leadership as chair ends on a losing note. How does it feel?

Koller: I didn’t write that script. I wanted to go out on a high note. I thought after Obama and Hillary, that’s a good way to go out.

The president said it well the other day: Democracy doesn’t work in a straight line, it’s a zig zag. It’s a human endeavor, and therefore unpredictable. It’s not that the Republicans, or Democrats, or the media didn’t get it. I don’t even think Trump got it. I don’t think anyone got it. I don’t think there was a great deal of genius behind it. Part of politics is being in the right place and time. That was certainly true for Obama.

What do you make of the election results?

The country hasn’t fundamentally changed since a month and half ago. It’s not a different country. It’s not even radically changed since four or eight years ago; we tend to have these exaggerated swings. I think the country hasn’t changed that much; America is still the same country fundamentally. This still is largely a democratic, left-of-center country.

How did the Democrats do locally on Nov. 8?

We’re happy with most of our outcomes. We were quite heavily invested in Measure Z, and the fact that turned out the way it did was great, especially given the fact that campaign was outspent enormously.

You can defeat big money in the right circumstances, with the right coalition and some good strategy behind it. We hit almost every door that is in a walkable community in the county, all the way to King City, and we mailed to every likely Democratic voter.

When you go to Sacramento as an elector, you’ll cast a losing vote for Hillary. Does that make it less exciting than when you were an elector for Obama?

It will feel different this time. When you’re on the losing team, it’s not quite as exciting.

You’ve joined in as a critic of the way the Electoral College happens, without electors having discretion.

The Electoral College is unequivocally a bad idea. There’s really nothing good about it. I know there are arguments in favor of it, but those arguments are mostly centered around [the idea that] smaller states should have more say, proportionately speaking. 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.

The reason half the country never sees these candidates is because of the Electoral College. If we had a popular election, a vote in Wyoming is as good as a vote in California, and that’s actually good for the country. Population centers are already being ignored, but they are important to the future of this country.