Trump wins Electoral College - as attempts to cause rebellion turn to farce wit

[MikeWB]

BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump wins Electoral College - as attempts to cause rebellion turn to farce with DEMOCRATS deserting Hillary

Calls for members of the Electoral College to 'vote your conscience' have paid off - but not for Hillary Clinton supporters 
A handful of 'Hamilton electors,' who are Democrats, chose to vote for moderate Republicans like John Kasich or Colin Powell
They had hoped that Republicans would follow suit peeling away the electors needed to elect Donald Trump president
By mid-afternoon Trump was close to receiving the 270 votes he would need to officially clinch the White House 
Bill Clinton was a member of New York's electoral college and was in Albany to cast a vote for his wife 
Four 'faithless' electors cast votes in Washington state not for Clinton, while attempts were made in Maine, Colorado and Minnesota 

Donald Trump officially crossed the line to 270 electoral votes with electors in Texas casting a ballot for the Republican shortly before 5:30 p.m. EST.   

Calls for Trump to be voted down by members of the Electoral College were roundly ignored on Monday – with only two 'faithless' Republican electors rejecting him and four deserting Democrat Hillary Clinton. 

David Bright of Maine was supposed to back the Democratic loser but announced he would defy the wishes of the state's voters and back Bernie Sanders, her primary opponent.

He was later told he'd be replaced by another elector if he made that move, so decided to vote Clinton instead.

In Minnesota an elector who was supposed to choose Clinton refused to vote and got replaced. 

Another 'faithless' elector, this time in Colorado, got replaced when he cast a vote for John Kasich instead of Hillary Clinton.

The elector, Micheal Baca, was a prominent Democratic 'Hamilton elector,' who was encouraging his GOP peers to unbind themselves from their state's popular vote winner and choose a more conventional Republican than Trump.

Because Colorado makes its delegates pledge to support the popular vote winner – Clinton in this case – Baca was forced out of the Electoral College and replaced by someone who cast one of the nine pro-Clinton votes for the state.

In Washington state, four electors broke away from Clinton, with some of the votes going to former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Washington was where other Democratic 'Hamilton electors' said they would vote across the aisle in hopes that Republicans would follow suit.

Another vote that was supposed to go to Clinton reportedly went to Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American environmentalist protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

In contrast, as the votes were cast in a series of states in the east, the mid-west and the south, just two Texas electors deserted Trump.


That left a Harvard professor's claims that as many as 20 Republican electors could go faithless looking like nonsense – and put Trump on cruise control for the White House.

It also left protests by die-hard anti-Trump activists taking place outside some state houses and capitols looking futile.

By 1:10 p.m. EST Electors from Pennsylvania, North Carolina Ohio and Louisiana had given Republican Donald Trump 134 of the 270 electoral votes required to formally win the presidency.

Four hours later, Trump was at 268 electoral votes, while Clinton held 166.

In New York, Clinton got 29 votes in a state that she formerly represented in the U.S. Senate.

One of them was cast by her husband.

Afterward a bleary-eyed ex-president told reporters: 'I never cast a vote I was prouder of.'

'You know, I watched her work for two years. I watched her battle through that bogus email deal,' he said.

'At the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal – she couldn't prevail against that,' Bill Clinton said.

She had won the national popular vote in the Nov. 8 election, and protesters rallied at state capitols around the country against Trump's expected victory in the Electoral College Monday.

Trump was poised to win 306 of the 538 electoral votes under the state-by-state distribution of electors used to choose presidents since 1789.

He'll get several fewer. 

But that's more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency.

Early on, Trump took all 16 presidential electors in Georgia and eight in Kentucky, as well as electors in South Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas.

The only upset of the early part of the day was in Maine.

Bright said on his Facebook page that he cast his vote for Sanders, instead of Hillary Clinton because his vote would not have helped her win.

'I cast my Electoral College vote for Bernie Sanders today to let those new voters who were inspired by him know that some of us did hear them, did listen to them, do respect them and understand their disappointment,' he wrote.

Later the Boston Globe reported that Bright was forced to change his mind when his selection of Sanders was ruled improper. 

Clinton picked up three of the four votes in Maine, and Trump one - it is one of only two states which does not adopt a winner takes all system for the electoral college vote.


Clinton also took Vermont's three electoral votes, while Trump on Monday won votes in Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia.

In Tennessee 11 presidential electors have cast their ballots forTrump, in accordance with state law.

The vote Monday came with little fanfare. One audience member tried to read out some Scripture before the ballots were cast, but was told he could not speak.

Protesters held rallies at state Capitols around the country, including in Nashville. The group called the December 19 Coalition said it wanted to try to persuade electors to change their minds given the CIA and FBI's conclusions that Russia interfered in the presidential election with the goal of supporting Trump.


Vermont's three members of the Electoral College were the first to report their vote for president.

All three chose Hillary Clinton, reflecting the state's vote in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

The Vermont electors are Gov. Peter Shumlin, state Rep. Tim Jerman and Martha Allen, president of the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association.

In Pennsylvania, hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the steps of the Capitol building in Harrisburg were simply ignored in their attempt persuade the electors not to vote for Trump.

The sign-waving protesters in 25-degree weather Monday were examples of demonstrations around the country against the Electoral College's expected selection of Trump as the nation's 45th president.