http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-electoralcollege-idUSPolitics
| Mon Dec 19, 2016 | 8:15pm EST
Trump
wins U.S. Electoral College vote; a few electors break ranks
People protest against U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump as electors gather to cast their votes for U.S.
president at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
December 19, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
By Eric M. Johnson and Jon Herskovitz |
SEATTLE/AUSTIN, Texas
Republican Donald Trump prevailed in U.S.
Electoral College voting on Monday to officially win election as the next
president, easily dashing a long-shot push by a small movement of detractors to
try to block him from gaining the White House.
Trump, who is set to take office on Jan.
20, garnered more than the 270 electoral votes required to win, even as at
least half a dozen U.S. electors broke with tradition to vote against their own
state’s directives, the largest number of “faithless electors” seen in more
than a century.
The Electoral College vote is normally a
formality but took on extra prominence this year after a group of Democratic
activists sought to persuade Republicans to cross lines and vote for Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton. She won the nationwide popular vote even as she failed
to win enough state-by-state votes in the acrimonious Nov. 8 election.
Protesters briefly disrupted Wisconsin's
Electoral College balloting. In Austin, Texas, about 100 people chanting: “Dump
Trump” and waving signs reading: “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You” gathered at
the state capitol trying to sway electors.
In the end, however, more Democrats than
Republicans went rogue, underscoring deep divisions within their party. At
least four Democratic electors voted for someone other than Clinton, while two
Republicans turned their backs on Trump.
With
nearly all votes counted, Trump had clinched 304 electoral votes to Clinton's
227, according to an Associated Press tally of the voting by 538 electors
across the country.
"I
will work hard to unite our country and be the President of all
Americans," Trump said in a statement responding to the results.
The Electoral College assigns each state
electors equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress. The
District of Columbia also has three electoral votes. The votes will be
officially counted during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
When voters go to the polls to cast a
ballot for president, they are actually choosing a presidential candidate's preferred
slate of electors for their state.
'FAITHLESS ELECTORS'
The "faithless electors" as they
are known represent a rare break from the tradition of casting an Electoral
College ballot as directed by the outcome of that state's popular election.
The most recent instance of a
"faithless elector" was in 2004, according to the Congressional
Research Service. The practice has been very rare in modern times, with only
eight such electors since 1900, each in a different election.
The two Republican breaks on Monday came
from Texas, where the voting is by secret ballot. One Republican elector voted
for Ron Paul, a favorite among Libertarians and former Republican congressman,
and another for Ohio Governor John Kasich, who challenged Trump in the race for
the Republican nomination.
Republican elector Christopher Suprun from
Texas had said he would not vote for Trump, explaining in an op-ed in the New
York Times that he had concerns about Trump's foreign policy experience and
business conflicts.
On the Democratic side, 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.
Four of the 12 Democratic electors in
Washington state broke ranks, with three voting for Colin Powell, a former
Republican secretary of state, and one for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native
American elder who has protested oil pipeline projects in the Dakotas.
Bret Chiafalo, 38, of Everett, Washington,
was one of three votes for Powell. He said he knew Clinton would not win but
believed Powell was better suited for the job than Trump.
The founding fathers "said the
electoral college was not to elect a demagogue, was not to elect someone
influenced by foreign powers, was not to elect someone who is unfit for office.
Trump fails on all three counts, unlike any candidate we’ve ever seen in
American history," Chiafalo said in an interview.
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'GREAT ANGST'
Washington's Democratic governor, Jay
Inslee, said after the vote that the Electoral College system should be
abolished. "This was a very difficult decision made this year. There is
great angst abroad in the land,” Inslee said.
Twenty-four states have laws trying to
prevent electors - most of whom have close ties to their parties - from
breaking ranks.
In Maine, Democratic elector David Bright
first cast his vote for Clinton's rival for the party nomination, Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who carried the state in the party nominating
contest. His vote was rejected, and he voted for Clinton on a second ballot.
In Hawaii, one of the state’s four
Democratic electors cast a ballot for Sanders in defiance of state law binding
electors to the state’s Election Day outcome, according to reports from the Los
Angeles Times and Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspapers.
In Colorado, where a state law requires
electors to cast their ballots for the winner of the state's popular vote,
elector Michael Baca tried to vote for Kasich - but was replaced with another
elector.
In Minnesota, one of the state’s 10
electors would not cast his vote for Clinton as required under state law,
prompting his dismissal and an alternate to be sworn in. All 10 of the state’s
electoral votes were then cast for her.
(Additional reporting by Tom Hals in
Wilmington, Del., Keith Coffman and Rick Wilking in Denver, and Roberta
Rampton, David Morgan and Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell
and Peter Cooney)
