Only seven members of the Electoral College proved “faithless” to their pledged presidential candidates today, and four of them are in Washington state. The tally in Olympia was eight for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the state – plus three for retired Gen. Colin Powell and one for Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle.
One of the four, Bret Chiafalo, was a leader in the “Hamilton Electors” movement, which sought to derail President-elect Donald Trump’s move to the White House by denying him the 270 electoral votes required for a win.
If the Hamilton Electors had swayed 37 of the electors pledged to the GOP candidate, the presidential election would have been gone to the House, to be decided in an arcane procedure that hasn’t been used since 1824.
In the end, just two Trump electors were swayed. Texas elector Chris Suprun had been saying for weeks that he’d vote for Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich when given the chance. In an op-ed published today by The Hill, Suprun said he was “gravely concerned” about claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Trump win.
Thirty-six of Texas’ electoral votes went to Trump. One vote went to Kasich, and another went to Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas.
Texas’ vote put Trump over the top in the Electoral College, formalizing his presidential victory with 304 electoral votes.
Later today, an elector who was pledged to Clinton in Hawaii voted instead for independent-minded Democrat Bernie Sanders.
A smattering of other electors said they intended to vote for other candidates but either changed their minds, were replaced or had their votes invalidated. Even so, this year’s seven renegades represent the highest number of electors to break away from their pledged presidential candidate. (That’s not counting 1872, when Horace Greeley died between Election Day and the Electoral College meeting.)
Chiafalo knew that Democratic electors such as himself couldn’t affect the Electoral College outcome directly, but they wanted to put pressure on Republicans to defect – and rally support for measures that would decide the presidency based on the national popular vote rather than the indirect electoral vote.
.@secstatewa Wyman & @GovInslee gather for group photo after Electoral College gathering that gave HRC 8 votes and 4 went with others. pic.twitter.com/c2ro3Tb9uN
— Secretary of State (@secstatewa) December 19, 2016
The Associated Press quoted Chiafalo as saying he had originally planned to vote for Kasich, but changed his vote to Powell after conversations with other electors. Powell headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Operation Desert Storm and became the first African-American to serve as secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s first term in office.
Robert Satiacum, a member of the Puyallup Tribe who backed Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary campaign, was the elector who cast a vote for Faith Spotted Eagle. Even before the election, Satiacum said he wouldn’t vote for Clinton because he didn’t trust her on tribal or environmental issues.
Spotted Eagle is an activist who helped lead the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a cause that’s close to Satiacum’s heart as well.
The electors also voted for vice-presidential candidates. Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, won eight electoral votes. The others went to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Native American activist Winona LaDuke.
Washington’s faithless electors each face a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for going against their pledge to vote for Clinton. However, their vote will stand – just as the vote of state Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, stood in 1976 when he backed Ronald Reagan rather than Gerald Ford.
The civil penalty is part of a law that the Legislature passed soon after the 1976 election, which means it’s never had to be imposed before.
.@secstatewa Wyman will enforce "faithless" elector law, which provides for civil penalty of up to $1,000. Working w/ @AGOWA on process.
— Secretary of State (@secstatewa) December 19, 2016
Several of Washington’s electors said they’d continue to fight to abolish the Electoral College, but the U.S. Constitution sets a high bar for such a change. The electoral system was put in place at the nation’s founding to balance the power between urban states and less populous rural states.
In a blog post, Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, acknowledged that the Electoral College has always been controversial in some circles. In this year’s election, and the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, the winner of the popular vote lost out in the Electoral College.
Washington has signed up as one of 11 states in the National Popular Vote compact, which would award a state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The interstate compact is designed to take effect when it’s enacted into law by enough states to constitute a 270-vote majority in the Electoral College. Right now, the tally stands at 165 electoral votes.
