Record Number Of Electors Refuse To Vote For This Year’s Dreadful Choices

The bad new first is that Donald Trump has received enough electoral votes to become president. The good news is that Hillary Clinton lost again. As expected, the attempts to deny Trump a majority in the electoral college were totally unsuccessful.

In a year with two of the worst candidates imaginable, a new record has been set for electors who failed to vote with their state’s votes, with more likely to have switched their votes if not for state laws interfering, along with the realization that it was a futile effort. While it is unprecedented to have this number of “unfaithful” electors, there weren’t enough to change the result:

Ultimately, Kasich earned one vote from an elector in Texas. So did former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.). In Washington state, three electors cast votes for former secretary of state Colin Powell, while another voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Sioux Native American tribe from South Dakota who opposes the Dakota Access Pipeline. Pence earned the requisite electoral votes to serve as vice president, but in Washington state, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also earned some votes.

Politico points out that some of those who attempted to vote for other candidates were replaced by other electors under laws in their states:

Seven Democratic electors attempted to vote against Clinton — four in Washington state and one each in Minnesota, Maine and Colorado. But three of the seven who attempted to buck Clinton were replaced by state election officials, raising questions about whether their “faithless” votes will be counted. In Colorado, a leader of the anti-Trump Democratic electors, Micheal Baca, was replaced by Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams for his attempted faithless vote.

The majority of the electors who voted for someone other than the winner in their state were Clinton electors, therefore barely impacting Trump’s total. Some Democratic electors had the goal of voting for a moderate Republican in the hopes that there would be anti-Trump Republican electors willing to do the same. An additional elector in Maine initially voted for Bernie Sanders, but a second ballot was held after his vote was declared out of order. He gave his reasons in a Facebook post.

Having the popular vote winner fail to win in the electoral college, along with the attempts to alter the results in the electoral college, has raised questions once again as to whether the electoral college should be abolished. Of course Republicans will never go along with abolishing it as long as the situation benefits them, having won two elections in recent years despite losing the popular vote.

Sparsely populated red states receive more electoral votes per voter than many of the larger blue states, although this year the demographics of the swing states were more important in determining the outcome in favor the the Republican candidate.

It should be kept in mind that there is no way to know who would have won if the election was based upon the popular vote. The candidates would have used a different strategy than they used in 2016. Donald Trump might have won the popular vote if this determined the winner by campaigning for votes in large safely Democratic states which he ignored. He also might have achieved higher turnout in red states if the number mattered.

While the electoral college is in need of reform, we also need to look at the nominating process which failed miserably this year in providing Trump and Clinton as the major party candidates.

Update: Electors in Colorado and Minnesota also tried to vote for Sanders but were prevented from doing so.

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