According to this story, one of the Republican candidates for presidential elector in Georgia says if he is elected to the electoral college, he probably won’t vote for Donald Trump. The story is somewhat naive to say that Georgia is one of 21 states that does not require presidential electors to vote for the nominee of the party that nominated them. Some of the other 29 states say that electors must vote for the presidential candidate they are pledged to, but those laws have no teeth. The only laws with binding effect are in North Carolina and Montana. Those states say a presidential elector who violates his or her pledge is deemed to have resigned, and to be replaced by the other electors from that state. But even those laws have no binding effect, if all the electors from such a state “disobey”. If they all violate their pledge, there would be no one to replace them.

Kansas held its primary on August 2. Incumbent member of the U.S. House Tim Huelskamp was defeated for the Republican nomination. This is only the fourth time this year that an incumbent member of Congress has been defeated in a major party primary. See this story. The other instances this year have been Republicans in North Carolina and Virginia, and a Democrat in Pennsylvania.

August 1 is the Massachusetts deadline for petitions for independent candidates for statewide office and U.S. House, and also for the nominees of unqualified parties for those offices. It is too early to know whether any petitions have enough valid signatures. Presidential candidates who took out papers are: Gary Johnson, Rocky De La Fuente, and William Feegbeh. According to information on the internet, Feegbeh was born in Liberia.