The electoral voters speak and they're not out for a revolt

[onenote]

42. No, 20 Trump electors have not changed their minds

At best, 20 electors have indicated to Lessig that they're "open" to voting for someone else. And Lessig hasn't substantiated that claim in any way.

So you may think "it's happening," but you have nothing to back that up but pure speculation.

Moreover, the 50+ electors that have requested an intelligence briefing are, with the one exception of the single Trump elector who has publicly stated he's switching (and as far as I know is still alive), are all Democrats. If you think any of those Democrats have ever given a single minute's thought to voting for Trump and need to see the intelligence materials to decide whether to do so or not, I have a bridge to sell you, cheap. By the way, they're never getting that intelligence briefing, just as no Repub electors would get access to unpublished Clinton investigation files from DOJ or the FBI if they said they needed to see them in order to deliberate before casting their electoral vote. So that's definitely not evidence of anything "happening" that would result in Trump getting fewer electoral votes.

With respect to your examples:

1800: A rather bizarre choice of an example on your part. This election was held prior to the ratification of the 12th Amendment. Under the provisions of the Constitution in effect at that time, electors cast two votes, but did not designate them for a particular office. The candidate with the most EVs became president and the runner up became VP (assuming each had received a vote from the majority of the electors). In what was a break from previous elections, the "Democratic-Republican Party" fielded a ticket on which Jefferson was the presidential candidate and Burr was the VP candidate. But, not surprisingly, all the electors that cast votes for Jefferson also cast votes for Burr, leaving them tied. That threw the election to the House, which had to choose between those two candidates. The third-place finisher, from the Federalist party, wasn't eligible for consideration. The states were divided (with the Federalist states supporting Burr) and it was not until one of the Federalist representatives pushed his state over to Jefferson's side. In the end, the House picked the person that the electors had intended to be president, which sort of blows up this example as pertinent to today's situation. Indeed, given the changes in the way the presidential election process works made after the 1800 election, its not clear how anyone could think that election to be remotely relevant to today's situation. It only might be so if Trump and Pence could be considered to have tied for the presidency requiring the House to decide.

On its face, the 1824 election looks like a better example for your since the candidate with the plurality of the EVs didn't get chosen by the House. The difference however was that in 1824, the Democratic-Republican party had imploded and there were four separate tickets running for the presidency that won electoral votes (which were not decided by popular vote in all instances and were not necessarily allocated on a "winner take all" basis). Bottom line: Because four candidates got electoral votes and only three could be considered by the House, the stage was set for the fourth candidate to throw his support to the second place finisher (J Q Adams) and hand him the election over Jackson. I should add that comparisons based on who won the "popular vote" in 1824 are meaningless since 25% of the states didn't choose electors by a popular vote, including the largest state, New York, which was an Adams stronghold.

1876 also is a non-sequitur when compared to the 2016 election (or any other election in US history). While the candidate with over 50 percent of the popular vote lost, it wasn't because of faithless electors or the decision of the House to hand the election to the second place finisher. It was because there was a dispute over the results in several states; that dispute was resolved via a compromise in which Hayes (who had finished second not counting the disputed EVs) all of the disputed EVS, and a one vote victory in the EC, in return for the end of Reconstruction. Obviously, a situation that has no parallel in today's election.

Finally, there is 2000. Also a bizarre choice for you to make in support of your claim that the selection of someone other than Trump is a realistic possibility. If anything, it supports the conclusion that come hell or high water, Trump will end up as President. In 2000, like 2016, the repub candidate got fewer popular votes than the Democratic candidate but more electoral votes. The reason the repub got more electoral votes was the highly controversial decision of the SCOTUS handling Bush a win in Florida. Yet, despite the contentiousness and controversy, and despite Bush having fewer popular votes than Gore, when it came time for the electors to cast their votes, not a single republican elector, including none of the Florida electors, chose not to cast their vote for Bush. Indeed, the only "faithless" elector was one from DC, who elected to abstain rather cast her vote for Gore as a protest measure.

And finally, you should continue to forget the idea that there was some great plan to get Ryan elected by having Trump win and then take the election from him at the electoral college stage and have it handed to him. Because that's just fantasy.

Anyway, this has been fun and educational. We'll see whether "it's happening" actually happens (I wouldn't bet a nickel on it) in a few days.