Most of the ‘Faithless Electors’ Were Democrats Who Didn’t Vote for Clinton
The “faithless elector” story took a surprising turn Monday when at least five Democratic members of the Electoral College did not vote for their party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, surpassing the number of Republicans who did not back Donald Trump.
Clinton supporters had been hoping to get at least 37 Republican electors to defect and vote for the former secretary of state or at least someone other than Trump.
Trump surpassed the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency Monday afternoon.
Four Democratic electors from Washington state and one from Maine broke ranks and did not vote for Clinton.
Reuters reported, “It appeared to be the largest number of electors not supporting their party’s nominee since 1872, when 63 Democratic electors did not vote for party nominee Horace Greeley, who had died after the election but before the Electoral College convened, according to Fairvote.org. Republican Ulysses S. Grant had won re-election in a landslide.”
Maine elector David Bright justified his vote for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by saying he was not a Clinton elector but a Democratic one.
“I cast my vote for Bernie Sanders not out of spite, or malice, or anger, or as an act of civil disobedience. I mean no disrespect to our nominee. I cast my vote to represent thousands of Democratic Maine voters — many less than a third my age — who came into Maine politics for the first time this year because of Bernie Sanders,” he wrote in a statement.
The Seattle Times reported that only eight of the state’s 12 Democrat electors voted for Clinton. “In an act of symbolic protest, three electors voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one cast a vote for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American elder from South Dakota” involved in the Dakota Access pipeline protest, according to the news outlet.
According to TheBlaze, there were two other instances of faithless electors, in Minnesota and in Colorado, who refused to vote for Clinton, but due to state law they were replaced by alternates who did.
In Texas, two Republican electors broke ranks and did not vote for Trump. One chose Ohio Gov. John Kasich while another chose former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
None the less, Texas was the state where Trump went over the 270 mark, with 36 casting their ballots for the GOP nominee.
The official Electoral College tally of all the states’ certified results will be completed by Congress in January when the body reconvenes. (For more from the author of “Most of the ‘Faithless Electors’ Were Democrats Who Didn’t Vote for Clinton” please click HERE)
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