The #NotMyPresident Alliance, a national anti-Donald Trump protest group, has released the personal information of dozens of Electoral College members in states that voted Republican.
A spreadsheet distributed to supporters Wednesday included the personal phone numbers, addresses, religions, races, genders, and candidate preference of the electors. The document does not have a complete set of data on every elector.
The group hopes that its members and citizens around the country will contact electors and persuade them to change their vote from Donald Trump to another candidate before Dec. 19, when electors cast their votes. The group does not advocate for Hillary Clinton or any other specific candidate, rather asking protesters to encourage electors from each state to a consensus that isn't Trump.
The group has color-coded each elector with how likely they are to change their vote based on their previous comments to press and social media.
Kurt Brown, an elector in Iowa, told BuzzFeed News he has not "totally committed yet" on where his electoral vote will go. His personal phone number and home address were posted in the spreadsheet.
Jim O'Connor, an elector from Arizona, was firmly pro-Trump. He called the Clinton foundation "the largest criminal enterprise to ever exist at a global level."
O'Connor said someone made his information public on November 10 without his consent. He doesn't know who it was, but he knew someone had because emails began pouring in. Since then, he said, he's received at least 60 phone calls and 1500 emails from concerned constituents. He tries to answer them, he said, but he can't get to everything.
Portland's Resistance, which is a part of #NotMyPresident, was originally included on the spreadsheet as cosigning on the release of information. But Gregory McKelvey, the leader of the Resistance, told BuzzFeed News he didn't know the disclosure was happening, and he asked the Alliance to remove his group's name.
Jon Gedney, the spokesperson of #NotMyPresident and one of its lead organizers, said the information in the document was publicly available and that his group uncovered it through Google searches.
Asked if members of the Electoral College might face hacking or harassment, Gedney said he believed there was "no more potential than there was already."
Elaborating, he said the group "rejected all acts of aggression and violence."
"The point was to collect as a tool for peaceful action," Gedney said. "The whole thing is we’re fighting against someone who’s contentious and hateful. No one in our group is going to use it for nefarious purposes."
Experts have previously told BuzzFeed News that the chance of faithless electors swinging the election is incredibly slim. Gedney was optimistic, though, because of the scale of protests across the country in the week following the election.
"If we somehow do still fail to win the hearts and minds of the Electoral College on December 19," Gedney wrote in a Facebook post, "we are creating the much needed infrastructure and solidarity we're going to need if we're to survive a Trump administration."