Minnesota Electors Cast Votes For Clinton As Trump's Win Is Made Official
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- Emotions ran high across the country as Electoral College members met to formally cast their votes, electing Donald Trump as the next president.
Trump beat Hillary Clinton with 307 electoral votes in the election.
Hundreds of anti-Trump protesters stood outside the Electoral College meeting at the Minnesota State Capitol, calling on electors nationwide to reject President-elect Trump.
"No Trump, no KKK, No fascist USA," many chanted.
Minnesota's Electoral College votes were all bound to Clinton, who won the state in one of the most turbulent elections in modern times.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said the rough-and-tumble campaign may have turned off voters in other states, but not Minnesota.
"In Minnesota, we chose action," said Simon. "We chose to turn out in very high numbers. And we made history in the process."
Minnesota led the nation with 74.7 percent voter turnout.
But not everything at Minnesota Electoral College meeting went according to plan.
One elector, Bernie Sanders supporter Muhammed Abdurrahman, refused to vote for Clinton.
That's a violation of state election law, and he was dismissed.
Abdurrahman said he wrote in Sanders' name as a protest of the law requiring him to vote for Clinton.
"Because I don't agree with the Minnesota statute that makes an elector vacate their position for not voting a certain way," Abdurrahman said.
Protesters outside carried a banner showing how many more votes Clinton won over Trump -- 2.8 million -- despite losing the Electoral College vote.
And some Minnesota lawmakers called for a new law to decide presidential elections by who gets the most votes.
"The only thing that we are proposing here is that the state of Minnesota goes with the winner of the national popular vote in the United States of America," St. Paul Democratic Rep. John Lesch said.
