How Hillary Clinton could still get in the White House

Updated

On Tuesday, Donald Trump was elected president; not soon after, many began to protest his win in the streets. Since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote over Trump, however, this protest may go all the way to Washington DC.

The New York Times projects that Clinton received 1.2 percent more popular votes than Trump. According to political scientist Alan Abramowitz, that is around 1.5 million votes.

The reason Trump won, however, is because he reached the threshold of 270 votes from the Electoral College; as of November 10, the count was 290 votes for Trump.

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The Electoral College is made up of chosen electors who vote for president -- but they do not vote on Election Day. Rather, according to the New York Post, they will come together on December 19. Typically, they vote for the candidate who won the electoral college votes. Should the electors keep to this, Trump will win.

Electors may defect, however, or abstain from voting. In this case, Clinton could win. If electors do this, they are called "faithless electors."

While it seems like a viable option, this is incredibly rare. The New York Times reported that 99 percent of electors vote as they're bound.

The last time the college had a faithless elector was in 2004, when one went against Democrat John Kerry and voted for his running mate, John Edwards. This was only a symbolic vote, however, as George W. Bush already passed the threshold to win the White House.

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Only 29 states have penalties for an elector voting against their state, and according to the New York Post, they're not severe.

A faithless elector has never swung the election, but there have been rumblings of what this year's Electoral College vote will bring. In August, Texas elector Chris Suprun told Politico that he may use his vote for Clinton due to his disdain for Trump.

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