The Pennsylvania Electoral College meets on the floor of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Dec. 17, 2024. (Photo by Commonwealth Media Services)
Pennsylvania’s Electoral College met on Tuesday in Harrisburg to cast votes for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.
“We gather after another free, fair, safe and secure election in our great commonwealth,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said on the floor of the House of Representatives in the state Capitol.
Schmidt, who presided over the 60th Pennsylvania Electoral College meeting, said it was worth noting that “Pennsylvania played a momentous role in creating the representative democracy we celebrate today.” Pennsylvania has participated in every single electoral college since the first in 1789.
The 19 electors from across Pennsylvania were present to vote for Trump and Vance one week after Pennsylvania certified the 2024 presidential election results. Trump received 3,543,308 votes, or 50.37%, in Pennsylvania, while Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s ticket, tallied 3,423,042 votes, or 48.66%.
The atmosphere was a marked contrast from four years ago, when the college met during the COVID-19 pandemic amid strenuous efforts by Republicans in Pennsylvania and elsewhere to reverse the results of the election won by President Joe Biden. Trump pressured Republicans across the country after the 2020 election to object to the results, falsely claiming the election was stolen. And in 2016, protesters descended on the Pennsylvania Electoral College urging the electors not to cast votes for Trump, who had won the state.
“Pennsylvania is the birthplace of our nation. Once again, we played an outsized role in determining the result of this year’s race for the entire country,” said Lawrence Tabas, president of the Electoral College and head of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “We are truly the Keystone State.”
Tabas spoke on behalf of Jim Worthington, a prominent Bucks County Republican who was to be the president of the college but could not be present because he and his wife are awaiting the birth of a daughter.
Tabas called Trump’s victory “historic” noting that it’s only the second time in the history of the United States that a president was elected to a second nonconsecutive term. Tabas also said that the president-elect is committed to delivering for all Americans and said he would work to ensure that the “streets and neighborhoods are safe, our border is secure, our economy is prosperous for all Americans,” and would “reduce inflation, increase domestic energy production so we have affordable energy and eliminate wasteful government spending and needless regulation.”
Tabas also noted that Trump won the popular vote, which is the first time that a Republican candidate has done so since 2004.
Pat Poprik, chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee and the vice president of the Pennsylvania Electoral College on Tuesday, called it an honor “to do this very important job” and defended the role of Electoral College. There’s been growing criticism of the institution for at times thwarting the will of the majority of voters across the country. Both President George W. Bush (in 2000) and Trump (in 2016) won the presidency despite losing the popular vote.
“It’s something that has survived over all the years, and it’s something we have to continue,” Poprik said, adding that there’s been talk “that the Electoral College should go away and let the popular vote win. And I say to you, I will fight that as long as I’m breathing.”
Poprik was among a so-called alternate slate of electors four years ago who drew criticism after submitting their names as electors for Pennsylvania in December 2020 and casting votes for then-President Trump, even though Joe Biden won the state’s popular vote. “It would be a popular vote, and the big states would decide, and nobody else would have anything to say. So what we’re doing today is so important to this country and our Constitution,” Poprik said Tuesday.
Gov. Josh Shapiro was scheduled to speak, but he was unable to attend due to weather conditions that forced his plane from Philadelphia to land in Lancaster, according to Tabas.
Schmidt delivered the remarks on Shapiro’s behalf.
“While, of course, we’re here today to celebrate your candidate, Donald Trump, being elected, I hope you also appreciate that your presence here today continues a long tradition in the commonwealth, a tradition of self-government, of charting our own course into the future,” Schmidt said.
Shapiro served as an elector in the 2008, 2012, and 2020 elections and cast his ballot in that same box, Schmidt said during the remarks on behalf of the governor.
Four years ago, the electors met at an auditorium in Harrisburg near the state Capitol to cast their votes for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The votes from Pennsylvania’s electoral college will be counted along with the other states during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. Trump will be sworn into office on Jan. 20 at noon.