2017 United States Electoral College vote count

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538 members of theElectoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Candidate Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Colin Powell Party Republican Democratic Republican Home state New York New York Virginia Running mate Mike Pence Tim Kaine Multiple[c] Electoral vote 304[a] 227[a] 3 States carried 30 +ME-02 20 +DC 0   Candidate Bernie Sanders John Kasich Ron Paul Party Independent Republican Libertarian Home state Vermont Ohio Texas Running mate Elizabeth Warren Carly Fiorina Mike Pence Electoral vote 1 1 1 States carried 0 0 0   Candidate Faith Spotted Eagle Party Democratic Home state South Dakota Running mate Winona LaDuke Electoral vote 1 States carried 0
Objections made to the electoral college votes of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.   No objections   Objection(s) attempted[b]
President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Donald Trump Republican

The count of theElectoral College ballots during ajoint session of the115th United States Congress, pursuant to theElectoral Count Act, on January 6, 2017, was held as the final step to confirmPresident-electDonald Trump's victory in the2016 presidential election over former Secretary of StateHillary Clinton.

This event was notable due to the manyfaithless electors inthe electoral college votes, and the many unsuccessful objections raised by Democratic members of theUnited States House of Representatives.

Joe Biden was the first incumbentvice president sinceRichard Nixon in 1961 to have presided over an electoral vote count who later ran for and won the presidency in a subsequent election. It was also the first time in the U.S. history that the incumbent vice president who have presided over an electoral vote count would later go on to defeat the winner of that presidential election in a subsequent election.^[d]

TheUnited States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by theConstitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing thepresident andvice president. Eachstateappoints electors according to itslegislature, equal in number to itscongressional delegation (senators and representatives).Federal office holders cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, anabsolute majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority there, acontingent election is held by theUnited States House of Representatives to elect the president, and by theUnited States Senate to elect the vice president.

Each state and the District of Columbia produces two documents to be forwarded to Congress, acertificate of ascertainment and acertificate of vote. Acertificate of ascertainment is an official document that identifies the state's appointedCollege electors and the tally of the final popular vote count for each candidate in that state in apresidential election; the certificate of ascertainment is submitted after an election by thegovernor of each state to thearchivist of the United States and others, in accordance with3 U.S.C. §§ 6–14 and theElectoral Count Act. Within the United States' electoral system, the certificates "[represent] a crucial link between the popular vote and votes cast by electors". The certificates must bear thestate seal and the governor's signature. Staff from theOffice of the Federal Register ensure that each certificate contains all legally required information. When each state's appointed electors meet to vote (on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December), they sign and record their vote on acertificate of vote, which are then paired with the certificate of ascertainment, which together are sent to be opened and counted by congress.

The12th Amendment mandates Congress assemble in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election.^[1] TheElectoral Count Act, a federal law passed in 1887, further established specific procedures for the counting of the electoral votes by the joint Congress. The session is ordinarily required to take place on January 6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors. Since the20th Amendment, the newly elected joint Congress declares the winner of the election; all elections before1936 were determined by the outgoing Congress.

A state's certificate of vote can be rejected only if both Houses of Congress, debating separately, vote to accept an objection by a majority in each House. If the objection is approved by both Houses, the state's votes are not included in the count. Individual votes can also be objected to, and are also not counted. If there are no objections or all objections are overruled, the presiding officer simply includes a state's votes, as declared in the certificate of vote, in the official tally. After the certificates from all states are read and the respective votes are counted, the presiding officer simply announces the final state of the vote. This announcement concludes the joint session and formalizes the recognition of the president-elect and of the vice president-elect. The senators then depart from the House chamber. The final tally is printed in the Senate and House journals.

In the2016 United States presidential election, ten members of theElectoral College voted or attempted to vote for a candidate different from the ones to whom they were pledged. Three of these votes were invalidated under thefaithless elector laws of their respective states, and the elector either subsequently voted for the pledged candidate or was replaced by someone who did. Although there had been a combined total of155 instances of individual electors voting faithlessly prior to 2016 in over two centuries of previous US presidential elections, 2016 was the first election in over a hundred years in which multiple electors worked to alter the result of the election.

As a result of the sevensuccessfully cast faithless votes, theDemocratic Party nominee,Hillary Clinton, lost five of her pledged electors while theRepublican Party nominee and then president-elect,Donald Trump, lost two. Three of the faithless electors voted forColin Powell whileJohn Kasich,Ron Paul,Bernie Sanders, andFaith Spotted Eagle each received one vote. The defections fell well short of the number needed to change the result of the election; only two of the seven defected from the winner, whereas 37 were needed to defect in order to force a contingent election in Congress (a tally of less than 270).

The faithless electors who opposed Donald Trump were part of a movement dubbed the "Hamilton Electors" co-founded by Micheal Baca ofColorado and Bret Chiafalo ofWashington. The movement attempted to find 37 Republican electors willing to vote for a different Republican in an effort to deny Donald Trump a majority in the Electoral College and force acontingent election in theHouse of Representatives. The electors advocated for voting their conscience to prevent the election of someone they viewed as unfit for the presidency as prescribed byAlexander Hamilton inNo. 68 ofThe Federalist Papers. Despite their stated intentions to defeat Donald Trump, these electors cast their votes for persons other than the candidate to whom they were pledged, Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton. By the time they switched their votes away from Trump's opponent, it was numerically impossible to achieve their stated goal as all but 30 of the Trump-pledged electoral votes had already been cast (in different states in the same or later time zones), with 37 votes needed to switch to deny Trump an outright victory in the Electoral College. Electors were subjected to public pressure, including threats of death. TheWashington elector who voted for Spotted Eagle did so in protest of Clinton's support for theDakota Access Pipeline; the vote made Spotted Eagle the firstNative American to ever receive an Electoral College vote for president, as well as one of the first two women, along with Clinton, to receive one.

The seven validated faithless votes for president were the most to defect from presidential candidates who were still alive in electoral college history, surpassing the six electors who defected fromJames Madison in the1808 election. This number of defections has been exceeded only once: in1872, a record 63 of 66 electors who were originally pledged to losing candidateHorace Greeley cast their votes for someone else (Greeley had died between election day and the meeting of the Electoral College). The six faithless vice-presidential votes in 2016 are short of the record for that office, without considering whether the vice-presidential candidates were still living, as multiple previous elections have had more than six faithless vice-presidential votes; in1836, faithless electors moved the vice-presidential decision to the US Senate, though this did not affect the outcome. (Full article...)

Ajoint session ofCongress convened at 1:00 PMEST on January 6, 2017, presided over by Vice President Biden, where the votes of the state electors were formally certified in theHouse chamber. The certification witnessed a total of 10 state certificates were objected to byDemocratic members of Congress, all of which were to states won by Donald Trump. Objections to the votes needed to be in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate. Every House member who rose to object did so without a senator's signature. Many of the objections were raised due to disputed claims ofvoter suppression and foreign interference. Then-Vice PresidentJoe Biden presided over the count. SenatorsAmy Klobuchar andRoy Blunt were the tellers from the Senate, and RepresentativesGregg Harper andBob Brady were the tellers from the House.

At 1:09 PM, RepresentativeJim McGovern raised the first objection, objecting the certification of Alabama's electors. Biden dismissed the objection because it lacked the signature of a senator. Shortly after, membersJamie Raskin andPramila Jayapal objected to electors from Florida and Georgia, respectively. AfterBarbara Lee objected to Michigan's electors, her microphone was turned off. Lee later objected to West Virginia's electors. RepresentativeSheila Jackson Lee made a total of four objections, objecting the certification of Mississippi's, North Carolina's (in whichRaul Grijalva also objected), South Carolina's, and Wisconsin's electors. Each time an objection was raised, Biden noted that the objections could not be entertained due to the lack of a signature from a senator. During Wyoming's certification, which was the final state to be certified,Maxine Waters pleaded to the chamber, asking for a senator to sign her objection. No senator came forward, and the procedure finished at 1:41 PM, with a total of 304 certified electoral college votes for Donald Trump and 227 certified electoral college votes for Hillary Clinton.^[2][3]

*Maine awards electors by congressional district. Clinton won Maine at-large and Maine's first congressional district, while Trump won the second district.

Several representatives had previously attempted to contest Bush's2004 victory in Ohio. These areBarbara Lee (D-CA-13),Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18),Maxine Waters (D-CA-43), andRaul Grijalva (D-AZ-3). Of these, all except Grijalva had previously contested Bush's2000 victory in Florida, making them the only Congress people to have contested three different elections.

• First presidential transition of Donald Trump
• 2001 United States Electoral College vote count
• 2005 United States Electoral College vote count

• 2016 United States presidential election
• United States Electoral College
• United States election controversies
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• Presidency of Barack Obama
• 115th United States Congress

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