All seven of Oklahoma’s electors voted at the state capitol Monday in favor of Donald Trump. The Republican president-elect won 65 percent of the popular vote in Oklahoma and carried every county in the state.
David Oldham, an elector from Tulsa, said he took his role seriously. He examined news reports to determine whether he thought Trump could serve as president, including Russian hacking allegations. He said there’s no proof Trump was involved in the hacks.
“In the lack of that, you have to discount it and believe that if there were something that is demonstrable, that would be up for impeachment proceedings, but that is not something that I can consider as an elector,” Oldham said.
Oldham says he received hundreds of letters encouraging him to vote for somebody other than Trump.
“The only thing that could have ever had me change my vote, and not be a problem with my word, was if someone was going to destroy the Constitution, destroy the republic. And Mr. Trump has come nowhere close to doing any of that,” Oldham said.
Lauree Beth Marshall is an elector from the Oklahoma City area. She received about 300 letters.
“Basically just asking me not to vote for Trump and to choose someone else. Most of them didn’t care who, just not Trump. So that was interesting,” Marshall said.
Marshall says she never wavered in her support for Trump during the process.
Outside the statehouse, about 15 protesters who belong to the group Hamilton Electors held signs to urge electors to vote for somebody else besides Trump. Organizer Timothy Bradford says he spoke with a few electors in the days and weeks before they voted.
“They felt that it was their democratic duty to do things the way they are done, and they do not see Trump in the same light that I do,” Bradford said.
Bradford says the electoral college’s role is to be a check on elections when the populace is misled.
