The road to inauguration day: How Slippery Rock’s Mayor Longo cast an official electoral vote for Trump
Jondavid Longo, the mayor of Slippery Rock, called being chosen as a designated elector one of the proudest moments of his life.
The moment on Dec. 17 when he cast one of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes for President-elect Donald Trump, was one of many moments involved in the transition of power between President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.
It’s often forgotten that the most important votes in an American presidential election aren’t cast by the average citizen, but by the designated electors of each state — the Electoral College. Those electors are sworn to cast the official votes on behalf of the candidate who has carried the popular vote in that state.
Before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the process of casting official electoral votes for president and vice president was a formality that few Americans paid attention to. The events of that day have focused more attention than ever on this seemingly-mundane, but all-too-important, component of the American democratic process.
Pennsylvania played its part Dec. 17, when the state’s 19 designated electors met in Harrisburg to cast their votes for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, who carried both the state and the nation. The number of electors represents the state’s congressional delegation: the usual two senators, plus 17 U.S. representatives.
Longo had the honor of casting one of those votes.
“Having the trust and confidence of the president and Pennsylvania’s Republican Party leadership to serve the people of the Commonwealth as an elector was a great testament to the hard work and dedication of the many grassroots activists and organizers I have had the pleasure of leading and working with over the 2024 election cycle,” Longo said. “Words can’t describe what an honor it was.”
Pennsylvania law requires that presidential candidates select their designated electors within 30 days of being nominated by their national conventions. Longo says he was chosen immediately following the Republican National Convention in mid-July, which took place less than a week after the attempted assassination of Trump at the Butler Farm Show grounds on July 13.
“I was contacted by members of President Trump’s staff and PAGOP immediately following the Republican National Convention and asked to serve on President Trump’s slate of electors in Pennsylvania,” Longo said.
The votes were delivered to Washington D.C., where they, and the votes of the 49 other states and the District of Columbia, were officially counted by Vice President Kamala Harris on Jan. 6 in a joint session of Congress.
Longo says the atmosphere at Harrisburg that day was one of tight security.
“On the day, we were escorted into the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives, where we swore a solemn oath before casting handwritten votes,” Longo said. “Communications, especially those including personal contact information of the electors, are closely guarded in the lead-up to the process to protect all involved from potential saboteurs.”
It is theoretically possible, but frowned upon, for a sworn elector to disregard his oath and cast a “faithless” vote for the president, vice president or both. There are multiple cases in history of this occurring.
The 2016 presidential election saw an unusually-high number of faithless electors — 10 — cast votes for candidates other than the ones who won their respective states. That year, faithless electors went both ways, voting against either Trump or that year’s Democratic candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
States have different laws regarding faithless electors, with some states, such as Pennsylvania, not having any laws on the books at all regarding the issue.
However, Longo says that faithless electors weren’t a concern at all, since he and the other electors were handpicked by Trump and the state GOP months before the election, minimizing the risk of this happening.
“It was nearly impossible for a faithless elector to have had the opportunity to cast a vote for someone other than President Trump,” Longo said. “However, anyone who would have attempted such a thing would have been met with harsh criticism and sanctions.”
