UPDATE: Steve Mistler of Maine Public Radio reports that after David Bright’s initial vote for Bernie Sanders was ruled out of order, he he re-cast his vote for Hillary Clinton.
Scott Thistle from the Press Herald adds:
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The Portland Press Herald reports that David Bright, a Democrat elector, will cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders, not Hillary Clinton. Maine has four electors, and for the first time will split them, with three awarded to Democrats and one for a Republican (Trump won Maine’s 2nd District).
David Bright, a Democratic elector, said in a post on Facebook he intended to cast his ballot for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who lost the bid to be the Democrats’ presidential candidate to former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Bright later told the Portland Press Herald he wanted to do the right thing even if it appeared to be in conflict with Maine law requiring electors to cast their ballots based on the results of the popular vote.
From the facebook post linked above, Bright explains:
I am not a Clinton elector, I am a Democratic elector. I do not represent Democrats all over the country, I represent the Democrats in Maine.
I cast my vote for Bernie Sanders not out of spite, or malice, or anger, or as an act of civil disobedience. I mean no disrespect to our nominee. I cast my vote to represent thousands of Democratic Maine voters – many less than a third my age – who came into Maine politics for the first time this year because of Bernie Sanders. They organized, telephoned and sent in their 27 dollars. Many stood in line for hours in order to navigate our byzantine system of caucuses and convention this Spring so they could be among the two thirds of Maine Democrats who cast a vote for Sanders.
Most importantly, they did this to vote FOR someone they believed in, not to vote against someone they feared.