The six Arkansans whose votes really count

By STEVE BRAWNER

In the November general election, 759,241 Arkansans voted to elect Donald J. Trump president of the United States. But the six whose votes really count under the Constitution gathered at the Arkansas State Capitol Tuesday.

Those were the Electoral College electors chosen in June by the Republican Party of Arkansas. They met in the Old Supreme Court Chamber Dec. 17 to participate in a process the Constitution says is the actual election for the president and vice president.

Those six were Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs, state Rep. Mindy McAlindon of Centerton, Sarah Dunklin of Dumas, Eddie Arnold of Arkadelphia, Jennifer Lancaster of Bauxite, and Joseph Wood of Fayetteville, the party’s chair.

Secretary of State John Thurston opened the proceedings promptly at 10 a.m. Barnett, a longtime party activist, was elected chair. Associate Supreme Court Justice Barbara Webb administered the oath of office. 

Then, one by one, the electors voted: first for Trump and then for Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Electors each signed six papers attesting to their votes. Barnett had them all revote for the historical record. The proceedings ended at 10:23 a.m., 23 minutes after they started.

Tuesday’s event was a quiet, drama-free step in the nation’s quadrennial process of electing its chief executive and backup chief. It happened in state capitols across the United States. 

This is not the final step in the process, as we learned four years ago. Congress still must certify that Trump won the election on Jan. 6, 2025. Vice President Kamala Harris will officially announce the results, as the Constitution requires vice presidents to do.

Presumably, the final count will remain what it was in November: 312-226 for Trump over Harris, although it doesn’t have to be so. The Constitution does not require electors to conform to the popular vote. Most states do have that requirement, and most of those cancel electors’ votes if they don’t conform. But according to Fair Vote, 13 states – Arkansas being one of them – have no such laws at all.

Throughout American history, 90 electors have strayed in their presidential votes while seventy-five have done so in their votes for vice president. Ten did it in the 2016 election. That included eight who were pledged to Hillary Clinton and two who were pledged to Trump, although one Democratic elector switched his vote back to Clinton while two of Clintons’s other faithless electors were replaced with electors who voted for her.

Some people were hoping that would happen at the Arkansas State Capitol eight years ago when Trump was elected the first time. That day, the courtroom was full of sign-carrying individuals imploring the electors to vote for someone other than him. If enough electors had done so nationwide, it would have thrown the election into the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would have had one vote. 

This Tuesday’s proceedings remained quiet despite some political controversy occurring earlier this year. Lancaster, the party’s former 2nd District chairperson, has gotten crossways with her party leadership. She had defeated Wood, the party’s full-time chairman, in an election to chair this past summer’s state convention. There, she led a temporarily successful effort to close the party primary elections, meaning only registered Republicans could vote.

Party leaders do not want that to happen out of fear it could lead to more extremist candidates winning more primaries. The party’s executive committee reversed the decision. Lancaster and others sued. Then the executive committee removed her as 2nd District chair and prevented her from holding any party office for 20 years. It also dissolved the Saline Country Republican Committee, of which she was a part. 

The vote did not rescind her status as an elector, and there were no issues Tuesday. In fact, she sat one spot removed from Wood as they both cast their votes for Trump.

I’d like to see the Electoral College reformed on a national level to end the winner-take-all system where one candidate wins all of a state’s electors. Instead, I’d like to see each state’s electors awarded proportionally and automatically according to that state’s popular vote. If that happened, there would be no more red states or blue states. 

That would be better, but things also could be worse. So let’s end on a realistic but also positive note. Let’s be glad the election is over, and also glad that we had one.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 17 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.