Thursday, December 15, 2016

A Look Inside NY's Electoral College Vote for President in a Controversial Year



When Electoral College members gather across the nation Monday to elect the next president of the United States, 29 New York electors are expected to show up in Albany for an event that's usually a bureaucratic formality.

The arcane proceeding, whose origins date to the Founding Fathers, has been thrust into a new light this year amid reports that the presidential election may have been interfered with by a foreign government. A rare split between the winners of the popular vote (Hillary Clinton) and electoral vote (Donald Trump) has fueled calls for reforms in the way the nation elects its president.

If Trump wins, it will be only the fifth time the Electoral College chooses a president who did not win the popular vote in the general election. Clinton leads by 2.8 million votes nationally.

As the controversy swirls over the vote, the meeting inside the state Capitol's Senate chamber will remain rooted in procedures and traditions that date back more than 200 years. In New York, electors fill out paper ballots and deposit them in a wooden box, leaving it to a clerk to count votes manually.

The New York electors, all Democrats, are part of a slate who pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton for president and Tim Kaine for vice president, the winners of the state's popular vote in the presidential election. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: Syracuse.com (via The Empire Report)

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