Sure it’s a sensational headline based on the distortion of percentages, but it is the sort of thing that the usual suspects in the media would have blazoned had the difference in the electoral vote anticipation compared to the official voting been reversed. It is remarkable in light of the intense multi-million dollar effort to try to get Republican electors to not vote for Trump that more of the electors who switched away from their candidate were Democrats. The following are true statements.
- The presidential election is a contest to win the most electoral college votes.
- There were a potential of 538 electoral votes to be won
- A majority of 270 electoral votes is needed to win
- After each states votes were finalized, in the unofficial but normal course of electoral voting, Donald Trump would be expected to garner 306 electoral votes which is 56.88% of the total
- After each states votes were finalized, in the unofficial but normal course of electoral voting, Hillary Clinton would be expected to garner 232 electoral votes which is 43.12% of the total
- State laws vary as to requirements regarding “faithfulness of electors” with respect to voting according to the results for the presidential ballot in their respective state. All but a few states are winner take all.
- At the conclusion of today’ formal electoral voting, Trump received 304 votes and Hillary received 227. Trumps total was 56.51% of those cast. Clinton received 42.19%.
- Two Republican electors attempted to cast their votes for someone other than Trump
- Seven Democrat electors attempted to cast their votes for someone other than Hillary.
- Under their state law, two Republican electors were allowed to cast their votes for someone other than Trump
- Under their state laws, five of the seven Democrat electors were allowed to cast their votes for someone other than Clinton. The other two were disqualified and substitute electors cast those two votes for Clinton.
- 3.5 times as many Democrat electors tried to elect someone other than Clinton compared to Republican electors rejecting Trump — seven vs two.
- Trump’s official electoral vote margin over Hillary Clinton expanded over the unofficial estimates after the casting of votes from 74 to 77.
We all heard endlessly about the campaign focused on Republican / Trump electors to get them to disregard the will of the voters in their respective states . It was entirely a campaign to delegitimize Trump’s solid election victory for the flimsiest of excuses. The campaign was part and parcel with the three state recount boondoggle forced by Clinton surrogates. Judges in Pennsylvania and Michigan disallowed the extraordinary recounts for various reasons including failure to file on time and lack of good faith. In Wisconsin the recount resulted in Trump increasing his net margin over Hillary by 140 or so votes.
As part of an effort to bamboozle electors, the Democrat effort focused on raising the specter that Russians helped Trump win by leaking hacked DNC e-mails. As we have written about extensively , Hillary Clinton had extensive e-mail problems far and away more significant than any e-mails Russians were improbably accused of leaking to help Trump. Further, the e-mails, whoever leaked them, were never challenged as untruthful in their indication of internal DNC corruption in favor of Hillary within the Democrat presidential primary.We believe what led the six Democrat electors to decline to vote for Hillary Clinton.
R Mall
*This post revised after the last state reported, which also involved a Democrat elector refusing to vote for Hillary, making the total Democrat attempted refusals seven, and allowed refusals five.
