Aboriginal activists thought his electoral college vote might be fake news

he U.S. electoral college vote — which confirmed a Trump presidency — was exceptional. There were a record number of faithless electors who did not vote according to the results in their state, and this included a presidential vote for a Native Ameri

Faith Spotted Eagle, 68, is a prominent activist who opposes both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. On Monday she became the first Native American to receive a vote for president. Of course, she was not running for president. She was busy driving her daughter to an airport when she received the news from a reporter. Spotted Eagle said: “I thought it was fake news ... I told my daughter, ‘Is this real?’ She said, ‘I think it is.’”

Washington State elector Democrat Robert Satiacum decided he would vote for Spotted Eagle at the very last minute. Satiacum is a Native American radio host and a member of the Puyallup Tribe in Washington State. Satiacum is a die-hard Sanders supporter. There was no way he would vote for Clinton At one point he even called her a criminal who did not care enough about American Indians and claimed "she's done nothing but flip back and forth".

Satiacum said that he was disillusioned after the Philadelphia Democratic National Convention: “It became apparent that this is a huge distraction, this election. It doesn’t matter who ascends to the throne. It’s the Olympics — a football game. It’s a distraction for the elite… How did we get Bozo the Clown and Mickey Mouse to choose from for president?” Satiacum said that he was ready to write a B for Bernard Sanders. However he heard a fellow aboriginal elector Dan Carpita playing a ceremonial song on a flute, he remembered Spotted Eagle whom he had hosted on his radio show several times over the past decade. He had also met her recently at Dakota Access protests. Satiacum also cast a vote for Winona LaDuke, a Native American environmentalist for vice-president.

Spotted Eagle was not the only person who suspected the vote was fake news. KOMO-TV in Seattle tweeted her name in quotes suggesting the name was fake. The station later apologized. Matthew Yglesias, well-known co-founder of Vox tweeted: “As Federalist 37 argues, once you’ve already lost the election you may as well vote for someone with a funny/memorable name.” Many on social media were not amused. Spotted Eagle's son suggested that in the world of mainstream journalism, she probably was regarded as imaginary.

Spotted Eagle was herself pro-Sanders and ambivalent towards Clinton although she appreciated Clinton's initiative addressing sexual abuse in the military. She thought that Trump's administration was going to be very pro-oil and that all of America would face a battle for the next four years. However she said it was nothing new for Native Americans or for her: “The battle that we’re fighting is 500 years old. It’s about dispossession, it’s about occupying our land by a foreign country, or foreign individuals.The resistance has always been in my blood and my spirit since I was born.”

There were three other faithless electors in Washington State all of whom voted for retired general Colin Powell. They hoped that they could convince Republican electors to vote for him as he is a Republican and would serve as an agreeable compromise to Trump. No other electors joined them. Of the two Republican faithless electors both from Texas, one voted for Ohio governor Kasich and the other for former representative Ron Paul a Libertarian. The other Democratic faithless elector from Hawaii voted for Bernie Sanders.