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Electoral College to Vote for Trump as a President | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hugs a U.S. flag as he takes the stage for a campaign town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire August 19, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder


Washington – Today the electors will convene in the 50 U.S. states to officially designate the next president Donald Trump and the vice president. However, the opposition wishes that a surprise takes place and keeps Trump out of the White House.

Yet, the possibility of a coup among the Electoral College is kind of unlikely.

Critics of Trump again denounced the electoral regime which contradicts with the “one man, one vote”. Yet, despite severe criticizing since decades, the voting system has not been reformed. When the Americans headed toward the polls on November 8, they did not directly select their next president but 538 eligible voters to elect the president.

Trump won a majority of Electoral College votes (306 votes), while popular vote went to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

It’s rare that electors refuse to abide by the elections’ outcomes– in the few previous cases when this actually occurred, the opposition was never enough to let another president reach the White House.

However, a number of democrats who have objection over Trump as a president still have hope that some republicans might abstain from voting to the president-elect.

A petition calling on electors to reject Trump has collected some five million supporters. Hollywood stars including Martin Sheen (President Bartlet on the TV series West Wing) recently released a video to goad electors to dump Trump.

The final vote result may not be known today, as states are given several days to report their numbers—the congress will announce the name of the winner on 6 January.

In a news conference, President Barack Obama said on Friday said that this electoral regime remains from the federal government and might not be adequate to democrats. However, he urged them to take lessons from their failure and to work on a strategy for the future instead of complaining over elections’ outcomes.