HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM)-- Pennsylvania's 19 presidential electors gathered at the state capitol in Harrisburg today, voting to confirm the results of the 2024 presidential election.
The Republican Party certified presidential electors to represent the 19 electoral votes that Pennsylvania had in the November General Election. Donald Trump and JD Vance won Pennsylvania by more than 120,000 votes over Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, a margin of less than 2%.
The 19 hand-picked Republican electors who participated today were:
William Bachenberg
Vallerie Biancaniello
Curt Coccodrilli
Bernadette S. Comfort
Robert A. Gleason Jr.
Joyce Haas
Fred Keller
Ash Khare
Jondavid Longo
Robin Lee Hoyt Medeiros
Rochelle Marie Pasquariello
Patricia K. Poprik
Andrew J. Reilly
Carol Lynne Ryan
Carla Sands
Lawrence Tabas
James "Jim" Vasilko
T. Lynette Villano
Christine A. Wilkins
"It was such an honor and it's a very historic process," said Sands, Trump's former ambassador to Denmark who ran for U.S. Senate in 2022. "There's a lot of pomp and circumstance and formality, a lot of signatures."
The certified votes will be officially received by Congress on January 6 along with the 49 other states.
"I think it showed that the Electoral College worked very well this time," said Lawrence Tabas, Chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. "People have accepted the results."
This time they did, but last time, not all Republicans accepted the 2020 election results when Joe Biden won the state. Bernie Comfort was a legitimate elector on Tuesday but an illegitimate one four years ago when Republicans seated their own slate of electors.
"What I would say about 2020 is what the now-governor said when he was attorney general, that we acted within the law and we were preserving President Trump's right while legal cases were still pending," said Comfort. "So that's what I would say about 2020."
Five of the fake electors who were accused of such actions were among the 19 electors casting their votes in Pennsylvania today.
Former statewide Republican Chair Rob Gleason was supposed to be an elector in 2020 but refused to come to Harrisburg to be part of the alternate slate.
"We lost last time, we won this time, and here we are," said Gleason on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania vehicle registration fees to be reduced for select customers
Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt oversaw the process on the House floor.
"This year, more than 7 million registered Pennsylvania voters participated in the process to elect the president, and their voices have been heard," said Schmidt. "Voting is the cornerstone of our representative democracy, and I want to thank the 19 men and women in this year's Electoral College who performed their Constitutional duty and reflected the wishes of the Commonwealth's voters."
Similar scenes are happening today across the nation with state electors gathering to vote for the president and vice president on separate ballots.
