Scenes from the revolt flop: Faith Spotted Eagle and the hapless MN elector; Breaking: Texas puts Trump over the top

Update: It took quite a while for Texas to get to it, thanks to the need to replace four electors who didn’t show up for the vote today, as well as conduct three (!) rounds of voting to elect a chair and another for secretary. It took two hours and fifteen minutes to finally get to business; it was a bit like watching a House vote with a three-hour window. Nevertheless, the Lone Star State finally cast its votes for the statewide winner of the popular vote, Donald Trump. Trump got 36 of the 38 votes, with Ron Paul and John Kasich getting one each.

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That puts Trump’s total at 304, and all of his states have completed their voting. At this point (5:35 pm ET), Hillary has lost four electors, with the possibility of losing more in California.

Original post follows ….

So far, the promised Electoral College revolt has all the hallmarks of “fake news.” That’s not to say that a few surprises didn’t occur — even Minnesota wasn’t immune. The cheers for Muhammad Abdurrahman seem a bit out of place, however, since his electoral vote was supposed to be cast for Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. The secretary of state’s office removed Abdurrahman after his attempt to vote for Bernie Sanders and replaced him with an elector willing to follow state law:

As The Hill notes, Minnesota’s DFL seems to have trouble voting for Democrats in the Electoral College. The most recent “faithless elector” came from our state in 2004, when one voted for John Edwards rather than John Kerry. (Wonder how that elector feels these days about that decision.) The other nine electors ignored this one protester, who warned about “history” in this homemade sign:

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In neighboring Wisconsin, which just endured a silly and pointless recount, all ten electors voted for Donald Trump as required. That touched off a demonstration in the chamber, with Trump opponents shouting, “You sold us out!”

Sold them out … how? By executing the proper role of the electors? If they have a complaint, it should be directed at Wisconsin voters, whose overall choice got accurately represented by the state’s electors. Or better yet, they should aim them at Hillary Clinton, who couldn’t be bothered to pay Wisconsin voters a visit, but spent millions to run up the vote totals in Chicago and New Orleans.

Faithless electors had more luck in Washington:

Eight of Washington state’s 12 electors voted for Clinton–but four went rogue, two voting for Colin Powell and two voting for “faith spotted eagle” according to The Seattle Times.

At least at that point, Hillary lost more electors than Trump, 4-0.

In Pennsylvania, protesters chanted, “This is what democracy looks like!” Actually, it isn’t what democracy looks like; it’s what free speech looks like. The intent here is to overturn the results of the election by pressuring the electors into changing their votes, which bears more resemblance to “mob rule” than democracy. It didn’t work, as Pennsylvania’s 20 electors voted for Trump:

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Coincidentally, they were using the same chant in Massachusetts:

Or, y’know, probably not so coincidentally. At least the lone protester in Tennessee offered a unique line about “the minority government.” (No one must have told him about the House and Senate results.) There were more media on site than protesters:

However, it wasn’t all paranoia and bitterness. In North Carolina, electors marched to their meeting while singing “God Bless America”:

But fear not — the Great Revolt still has one more chance. You just gotta believe, man:

https://twitter.com/DavidInFlalala/status/810930036220039168

Yeah, probably, but it won’t last long. Congress can raise a challenge to a state’s electoral slate if one senator and one representative sign onto it, but Republicans have the majority in both chambers, which means that the slates will get certified anyway. If Democrats try that stunt in Congress, though, it will directly implicate the party in the effort to overturn the election. It would be complete folly to do that, and yet we’re seeing an awful lot of folly today as it is.

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Duane Patterson 11:00 AM | December 26, 2024
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