Idaho’s Republican electors met Monday morning in the Governor's Ceremonial Office to prepare to cast the state’s official Presidential Electoral College votes.
Four Republican electors were set to meet Monday to vote, but two were disqualified because they are federal employees and therefore barred from serving as electors.
Monday morning Governor Otter and Secretary of State Lawerence Denney met with the remaining two electors to vote and sign off on appointing two new electors.
After doing so, the group of four returned to cast their official votes at noon on Monday. The Idaho electors cast four votes to select Donald Trump for President and Mike Pence as Vice President with their votes.
Some anti-Trump protestors waited in the hallway of the Capitol and made “never Trump” remarks before the public meeting started.
Cay Marquar says she was protesting to send a message about creating a better future. She thinks Trumps picks for his staff signify things are not going in the direction she wants the country to go.
"(We) just need to become more aware who Trump has appointed for his cabinet, look into their histories, look and see what they've done. So you know protesting is to bring awareness. It won't change very many electoral votes, and it certainly wont change them here," said Marquar.
The room remained mostly quiet during the formal voting process. There was one outburst after the process was done by a protestor who yelled "shame on you!" as she left the Governor's office.
After everything was finalized, Gov. Otter told KTVB that he was relieved to finish off the process.
"It's to our credit that we protect and perserve this process and it needs to be a dignified process and I thought that it was today," said Gov. Otter.
The Governor added that he appreciated people against voting for Trump showing up to voice their opinion respectfully and exercise their First Amendment rights and without disturbing the process.
"That's the beauty of this very process that we went through today. It protects those very people that protested, this very government protects those people that were protesting," said Gov. Otter.
Although it was unlikely, Idaho state electors could have casted their vote for someone other than Trump. Unlike rules in 29 other states, Idaho electors aren't required to honor the state's results. There’s no penalty if Idaho's electors choose to go their own way.
Electors who vote against or abstain to cast a ballot based on the state’s popular vote are known as “faithless electors.”
The most recent occurrence of a faithless elector was in 2004 when an anonymous Elector from Minnesota voted for the same candidate for both President and Vice‐President. To date, no elector has ever changed the outcome of the election by voting against his or her party's nominee.
