Washington: Donald Trump's election victory has been made official as electors gave him more than the 270 votes needed to win the US presidency, despite a campaign to deny him a majority.
The meeting of the Electoral College's 538 members - which took place at statehouses across the country - is typically a formality. But extra drama was added to the proceedings as a concerted campaign took place among activists and even celebrities to convince electors to vote their conscience and overturn the November 8 election results.
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Trump cruises to Electoral College victory
There were many protesters as Donald Trump wins the Electoral College vote ensuring that the billionaire will become America's 45th president.
Their efforts failed. Trump, who won 30 states with a total of 306 electoral votes, amassed enough votes on Monday afternoon when Texas electors cast their ballots, according to an Associated Press tally.
In fact, the electors who switched their votes were at the expense of Hillary Clinton. Four electors in Washington state, which she won handily, cast their ballots for someone else. Three went to Colin Powell and one for "Faith Spotted Eagle." In Texas, which Trump won, one elector cast his ballot for John Kasich and another for Ron Paul. At least one, the elector from Maine, voted for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
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The effort to convince electors to vote against Trump was motivated in part by concerns over Russian influence in the electoral process. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, in an effort to tilt the election toward Trump. Some activists pointed to the words of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers, and his intent for the Electoral College to be a guard against foreign influence of elections.
Although Trump won the electoral vote, after breaking through in traditionally Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he fell far short in the popular vote. Clinton won more than 2.8 million votes, and was more than two percentage votes ahead of Trump. Protesters gathered in some state capitals.
Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, was an elector in New York, which cast all of its 29 votes for her. He told reporters afterwards: "I've never cast a vote I was prouder of".
From the Connecticut senate chambers in Hartford to the Alaska library archives museum in Juneau, the normally sedate gatherings drew intense interest this year because of a bid by a small group of electors to block Trump from the White House. Anti-Trump protests were reported in several state capitals.
The unparalleled attempt to persuade at least 37 Republican electors to ignore the state-by-state, winner-take-all results of the election and back someone other than Trump was sure to fail. But it injected more anger and partisanship into the already divisive 2016 presidential campaign that will go down as one of the oddest in American history.
In the end, it was not Republicans breaking ranks. The five Democrats who cast ballots for other people became the largest number of "faithless electors" seen in well over a century.
By late afternoon, no Republican elector was reported to have cast a ballot for anyone other than Trump, although one elector from Texas had written that he planned to do so.
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 Grant had won re-election in a landslide.
Voting went as expected, with electors in Ohio, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia casting their votes for Republican Trump based on his victories in those states. Pennsylvania, one of the election's closely fought swing states, also awarded Trump all 20 of its electors.
Chants of "shame on you", echoed in the legislative chambers where the Pennsylvania electors were gathered, as it became clear that Trump would win all the votes there. "He's not our president," one woman yelled.
Founders' Compromise
The Electoral College was created by the nation's founders as a compromise between those who favoured a direct popular vote and those who wanted lawmakers to pick the president.
This year, the Republican won the popular vote in 30 states that have 306 electoral votes, 36 more than the 270 needed to win. Clinton carried 20 states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 232 electors.
During the weekend before the voting, Electoral College protests played out in several major US cities, as activists tried to apply last-gasp pressure on electors. Additional protests were planned today in some states, with the voting taking place in open sessions.
The balloting was happening at various times on Monday (early Tuesday AEST), with the results to be formally announced on January 6 during a joint session of Congress in Washington. The presidential inauguration is on January 20.
Popular Vote
One of the drivers for the attempt to alter the Electoral College result is that, by running up big margins in populous states like California and New York, Clinton beat Trump by at least 2.8 million ballots in the nationwide popular vote. It was the largest gap ever for a candidate who didn't win the White House.
Turmoil among electors was further stirred earlier this month when President Barack Obama directed US intelligence agencies to deliver a report on Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails, and the Washington Post reported that the CIA concluded the meddling was intended to benefit Trump.
Those developments prompted more than 60 electors - all but one of them Democrats in states Clinton won - to sign onto a letter unsuccessfully seeking an intelligence briefing about the hacking.
None of the electors who have signed the letter have necessarily joined in the call for Republican electors to back a consensus candidate that Republican and Democratic electors might support.
That wouldn't have to be Clinton. Members of the Hamilton Electors, one of the groups pushing the effort to block Trump, have mentioned former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and Ohio Governor John Kasich as potential alternatives.
There's no constitutional requirement that binds electors to the candidates who won their state, but most are required to do so under state laws. That's never mattered or been seriously tested because there have been few cases of what's known as "faithless electors" - the last occurrence was in 2004.
If the effort to flip 37 Republican electors were to succeed, it could send the final decision to the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives.
Bloomberg
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