Anchored by actor Martin Sheen, who played the president on television’s “West Wing,” the celebrities pleaded for 37 “conscientious Republican electors” to deny Trump the presidency by not voting for him. The actors say they would “respect” those electors as “heroes.”

Sheen warned, “As you know, our Founding Fathers built the Electoral College to safeguard the American people from the dangers of a demagogue and to ensure that the presidency only goes to someone who is to an eminent degree and down with the requisite qualifications.”

The actors repeatedly insist they are not asking electors to vote for Clinton, just not to vote for Trump.

Their message claims, “What is evident is that Donald Trump lacks more than the qualifications to be president. He lacks the necessary stability and clearly the respect for the Constitution of our great nation.”

The video, released on YouTube by a group called Unite for America, does not have any superstar Democrats such as George Clooney or Barbara Streisand, but it does include such recognizable actors as Debra Messing, Noah Wyle, Mike Farrell and Loretta Swit.

Additionally, Democratic Party activist Daniel Brezenoff ran full-page newspaper ads across the country on Wednesday urging Electoral College members to “vote their conscience” as part of what Politico called “a pressure campaign intended to block the election of Donald Trump.”

The ads ran in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin American-Statesman, Salt Lake City Tribune and Tampa Bay Times and were set to appear in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday.

The ads said Trump’s “inauguration would present a grave and continual threat to the Constitution, to domestic tranquility and to international stability.”

Brezenoff recently gained notoriety by launching a Change.org petition asking the Electoral College to pick Clinton instead of Trump.

According to Politico, “The petition went viral and is approaching 5 million signatures, the largest in Change.org’s history. He leveraged that list to raise about $250,000 through a GoFundMe page to support the ads. He said the newspaper campaign has exhausted virtually all of the funds raised.”

Brezenoff told Politico he still wants electors to vote for Clinton, but he also implied the real goal is to stop Trump.

The website reported, “Brezenoff said the ad campaign is designed to reach electors but also raise public pressure on them in states with large Democratic populations or widespread anti-Trump sentiment.”

But even stopping Trump in the Electoral College probably would not stop him from becoming president.

That’s because if no one candidate receives enough votes in the Electoral College to become president, the election would move to the House of Representatives, where Trump would almost certainly win.

That’s because there most likely would be only two candidates on the House ballot, Trump and Clinton, and that chamber is dominated by a large GOP majority.

Here’s how it works.

To become president, 270 votes in the Electoral College are needed. Trump earned 306 electoral votes in the general election, and Clinton won 232.

The plan to keep Trump from officially receiving those 270 votes in Monday’s gathering of the Electoral College is the brainchild of Democrats who call themselves “The Hamilton Electors.”

They say they want the Electoral College to elect a third candidate, and have Republican and Democratic electors reach a consensus on who that might be. But, most of all, they want to stop Trump from reaching 270 votes.

If no candidate were to receive 270 votes on Monday in the Electoral College, the election would go to the House of Representatives.

The House would then hold what is called a “contingent election.”

Just 37 Republican electors would need to defect to deny Trump victory, which is what has fueled Democrats’ hopes.

And, according to Fox News, “The Hamilton Electors hope that House Republicans would then pick the alternative Republican over Trump.”

But that would not seem to be possible.

That’s because the rules for a contingent election of the president in the House, outlined in the 12th Amendment, stipulate that only the three candidates who received the most electoral votes are eligible, when no one candidate reaches 270.

And the only candidates who received any Electoral College votes were Trump and Clinton.

Runners-up Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party’s Jill Stein won no Electoral College votes.

And no viable third candidate has emerged. Of the names mentioned as possibilities, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has stayed mum, and Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio tweeted, “The election is over.”

Unless a consensus third candidate suddenly does emerge to receive 270 electoral votes on Monday, the only two candidates eligible for a contingent election in the House would be Trump (who won 306 electoral votes) and Clinton (who won 232).

And the GOP still has a commanding majority in the House, retaining control of the chamber in the 2016 election, winning 241 seats to the Democrats’ 194.

So, even if Trump does not get 270 votes from the Electoral College on Monday, given a choice of between either him or Clinton, with no other option, it would appear certain the GOP-dominated House would select the Republican in a contingent election.

But the lack of a third candidate hasn’t stopped Democrats from trying everything possible to stop Trump in the Electoral College on Monday.

Their hopes were raised Wednesday when Fox reported that Harvard constitutional law professor Larry Lessig claimed there were at least 20 GOP electors seriously considering not voting for Trump.

With only 37 GOP defectors needed, Lessig has been actively trying to stop Trump from by setting up “a legal group, ‘The Electors Trust,’ to offer legal counsel to anti-Trump electors.”

Lessig told Fox he believed GOP electors will vote against Trump only if they are sure they have at least 37 defectors.

“There are some who will do it as a matter of principle; one has already said he will. But most will be in the situation where they won’t make that sacrifice unless there a reason to sacrifice,” said the Harvard professor.

Although Fox downplayed the likelihood of enough electors defecting, a Republican heavyweight cautioned that Lessig should not be underestimated.

Gary Bauer, the former under secretary of education and chief domestic policy adviser to President Reagan, said “Professor Lessig is not just any Harvard leftist professor” and warned of the potential for “a political earthquake” when electors gather to vote for president on Monday.

Bauer described Lessig as both “far left” and “well connected,” and he warned he “has been providing free legal help to electors from states Trump won.”

“At the same time as he is providing ‘counsel,’ Republican electors are reportedly being harassed 24 hours a day by left wing fanatics,” continued Bauer.

“The harassment includes death threats that has left some of them fearful for themselves and their families. Sounds like hate crimes to me. Where is the Justice Department?”

Despite the assault on electors, Bauer said he is somewhat reassured that the Republican National Committee is monitoring the situation and regularly talking to them.

Additionally, Lessig faces a significant legal hurdle.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring their electors to cast ballots for the winner of the popular vote.

To get around that, the Hamilton Electors have been trying to use the courts to free up enough anti-Trump electoral votes, filing a lawsuit to overturn Colorado’s law requiring the state’s nine electors to vote for the winner in that state.

Even though Clinton won in their state, Democratic electors Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich, who are part of the Hamilton Electors movement, filed the suit in the hope it would set a precedent, freeing electors in states that Trump won to vote against the president-elect.

But a federal judge in Denver ruled on Tuesday that Colorado’s nine electors must vote for Clinton, the winner of the state’s popular vote.

On Wednesday, the same federal judge ruled that if the Democratic electors refuse to vote for Clinton, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams may replace them with electors who will follow the law, if he so chooses.

Additionally, Williams, a Republican, has told Politico that any Colorado elector who does not vote for Clinton could face a perjury charge, because he intends to make them take an oath to uphold the law.

Baca and Nemanich have filed an emergency appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lawsuits similar to the one filed in Colorado seeking to overturn laws requiring electors to vote for the winner in their states have been filed in California and Washington state.