Twenty-nine men and women — Florida’s electors, each selected by the state Republican Party and approved by the governor — gathered there to officially usher in society's collapse, er, cast their ballots for president and vice president of the United States.
A small audience watched it all from the perimeter of the room, some of them looking bemused as electors from the country's biggest swing state cast their ballots for Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner called the proceedings a “very special and historic event.”
For months now, electors have been receiving tons of mail from voters urging them to vote for one candidate or another, something that likely intensified after more than half of the state's voters went for Trump on Nov. 8. An elector from Pinellas County, Nick DeCeglie (who is also that county's GOP chair), tweeted a photo of a large stack of mail he received from voters.
"One day of mail when you are a #TrumpElector #VotingForTrump #3rdGradeCivics #FlaPol," he wrote.
Some Democrats and Republican Trump critics had hoped that electors would revolt by choosing either Hillary Clinton or a Republican with a reasonable level of sensibility and respect for others, perhaps one who didn't brag about assaulting women or take to Twitter to destabilize international relations before he even took office. Democrats decried the Electoral College process, especially given that Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes, and that if the Electoral College isn't doing what the Founding Fathers likely intended — keep the general public from electing a despot to the presidency — then what's the point of keeping it around?
But anyone who thought their pleas would trigger a change of heart among Florida's electors was either naive or optimistic to the point of delusion. The Republican Party is overwhelmingly dominant in the state, so every handpicked elector toed the line despite past acrimony over Trump's now-terrifying buffoonery. Hell, the two co-chairs of Trump's Florida campaign — Joe Gruters and Susie Wiles — were themselves electors. They were all up there doing what most of Florida's voters asked them to do.
“You 29 men and women have been appointed by voters to serve as Florida's presidential electors,” Detzner said. "This method of electing our president and vice president is required by our Constitution.”
The first round of ballots was for president, the second for vice. The electors filled out their ballots in silence while, thousands of miles away, chaos and instability continued to rule the world's hot spots — unrest more likely to be aggravated than assuaged by the president-elect if his initial ventures into global politics are any indication.
The ballots were tallied and the whole thing was over in under 45 minutes.
"Let the record reflect that Donald J. Trump received 29 electoral votes for President of the United States and that Michael R. Pence received 29 votes for Vice President of the United States," Detzner said.
There was cheering among some members of the audience..
Each of the electors was then called up to sign seven electoral certificates apiece.
Then, a photo op.
Before they were allowed to return to their home districts, many of which are bracing for the ravages of climate change despite the fact that neither they nor the men they elected want to believe it is real, state party chair Blaise Ingoglia thanked the electors for putting up with all the grief leading up to Monday.
"I know it was a long hard haul and I know over the past couple of months a lot of you have been inundated with [messages]," he said. "It was an intrusion on your privacy and it took away some of your family time…We all have one thing in common."
The one thing, everyone in the room shared, he said, was a "love" for the country.
"I hope that some day in the future we will all be able to look back and say we were part of history."
And with that, Florida's votes officially went to Trump/Pence.
As of 3:30 Monday afternoon, nearly three dozen other states had done the same, with little or no incident beyond swarms of protesters calling on electors to change their minds.
Trump's — gulp — inauguration is slated to take place Jan. 20, which gives us hardly enough time to dig ourselves a bunker and stock up on nonperishables, what with the holidays and all.
This article appears in Dec 15-22, 2016.