| By Derek Caney
Those opponents of President-elect Donald Trump putting their faith in "faithless electors" will probably be disappointed by the end of today, when the final electoral votes are tallied. For those needing to brush up on American civics, when voters cast a ballot in presidential elections, they are actually voting for electors. The majority of these electors pledge to vote in accordance with the popular vote of their precincts. Those that break that pledge are called "faithless electors." Both the allegations of Russian hacking and the 2,864,978-vote advantage Hillary Clinton had in the popular vote mean that there is more doubt than usual being cast on the electoral vote. But it's still unlikely that today's vote will change the outcome of the election. Faithless elector FAQ - Have faithless electors ever overturned a presidential election? No. They came close to overturning a vice presidential candidate in 1836, when Martin Van Buren's running mate Richard Mentor Johnson was rejected by all 23 of Virginia's electors because of his interracial relationship with a slave. That left Johnson with one vote shy of a majority and threw his election into the Senate, who overwhelmingly voted in favor of him.
- How many faithless electors have there been in American history? 157.
- In which election did the last faithless elector vote?
- That was the 2004 election, when a single Democratic elector in Minnesota voted for the running mate John Edwards, rather than John Kerry, who was at the top of the ticket. Minnesota Electoral College votes were anonymous at the time and no one stepped forward to claim the faithless vote as any kind of political protest. It was assumed at the time to be a mistake on the part of the elector - not that it mattered much. George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote by 286-251.
- How many states require formal pledges from electors?
- 30, plus the District of Columbia.
Newcomer at the hat contest? 
Trump greets a group of gathered Azalea Trail Maids in Mobile, Alabama, Dec. 17, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Around the country - Trump's drive to rebuild U.S. roads, bridges, ports and other public works projects with a $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan would come as the country faces a shortage of skilled laborers. Infrastructure projects need highly trained workers, such as heavy equipment operators and iron specialists. A quarter of those jobs vanished during the Great Recession. The irony is that undocumented immigrants might have replenished those ranks. But that's unlikely to happen since companies don't want to invest in training people with an uncertain status, especially given Trump's anti-immigrant bent.
- About 2,000 people protesting against Trump's rhetoric and proposals marched peacefully through downtown Los Angeles yesterday in advance of today's Electoral College vote. The march took place on International Migrants Day, designated by the United Nations to draw attention to the plight of refugees.
Quote of the day "I want to tell Mr. Trump that we are immigrants. We help this economy grow. We don’t want nothing for free." – Horalia Jauregui, a participant in yesterday's protest. - There are still about 1,000 people protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline in the main North Dakota camp, despite a federal ruling that the pipeline company must look for other routes to avoid Native American tribal lands – and they are planning to stay for the winter. Most of the remaining protesters are Native Americans, who want to support the tribal sovereignty effort forcefully argued by the Standing Rock Sioux, whose land is adjacent to the pipeline. Others are afraid that Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the $3.8 billion project, will resume construction without protesters on the ground, especially if Trump rolls back the federal ruling when he takes over.
Around Wall Street - Iran expects to get the first of its 100 new jets from Airbus in mid-January. Under the multi-billion-dollar deal, Airbus will supply four types of aircraft: its medium-haul A320 and A321 aircraft and the long-haul A330 and A350. Iran also reached a deal last week to buy 80 planes from Boeing.
- In the summer of 2013, Yahoo launched a project to better secure the passwords of its customers, abandoning the use of a discredited technology for encrypting data known as MD5. By then it was too late. By August, hackers got hold of more than a billion Yahoo accounts.
Digits of the day: 32 percent Chinese households are investing more of their savings in foreign currency, as tensions rise between Beijing and Washington following the election of Donald Trump. The president-elect has promised to declare China a currency manipulator and to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese imports into the United States. He also hasn’t committed to acknowledging China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, a departure from nearly 40 years of foreign policy. In the first 11 months of 2016, official figures show that foreign currency bank deposits owned by Chinese households rose by almost 32 percent, propelled by the yuan's recent fall to eight-year lows against the dollar.
Around the world - Speaking of China, the country is in talks to return an underwater drone to the United States after it was found in the South China Sea. It was the first of this kind of seizure in recent memory. The Pentagon said the two sides reached a deal on Saturday to return the drone. A spokeswoman from China's foreign ministry would only say the matter is being handled appropriately.
- NATO plans to reassure Russia that its troop deployments to the Baltics and Poland next year are purely defensive. The two sides are slated to convene for a rare meeting that's unlikely to yield any meaningful agreements.
- Jordanian security forces killed four "terrorist outlaws" after flushing them out of a castle in the southern city of Karak where they had holed up after a shoot-out that killed nine people.
Today's reason to live Richard Thompson – Love In A Faithless Country |
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