In a unanimous vote, Michigan's 16 Republican electors gave their votes to Donald Trump, helping him officially become the 45th President of the United State.
While counting electoral votes typically doesn't get much attention, this year was different. Hundreds of people protested outside and inside the state Capitol, in a last ditch effort to get the electors to vote for anyone but Trump.
"They could make the statement of voting for someone other than Trump, I honestly could care very little who else," said Stephen Caird, who drove from Ann Arbor to join the protests. "My primary concern is the moral implications of voting in a candidate who's demonstrated xenophobia, who has demonstrated misogyny, who has demonstrated support for systemic racism in our nation, and I can't stand for that."
At one point protesters filled three floors of the Capitol rotunda chanting "Donald Trump, go away" and "unfit to serve."
While their cries could be heard inside the electors' meeting room, no one was swayed.
"That wasn't going to happen," said Dr. Joseph Guzman, an elector from Okemos.
For Guzman his vote was about following and maintaining the integrity of our election process.
"I do have a conscious, I did vote using my conscious," Guzman said. "The electoral system that we have is appropriate."
Michigan is one of 29 states that requires electors to vote according to the election results. Trump won Michigan's popular with a 10,704 lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Still the electors were bombarded with e-mails, phone calls, and letters pleading them to deny Trump the vote. Guzman says his email was flooded with more than 50,000 messages not to mention hundreds of letters.
"There was unfortunately attempts to do damage, subvert confidence in our system and our system worked," he said.
Governor Rick Synder was happy the electors made the right choice.
"You could see law wasn't required to get these people to support President-Elect Trump, they were excited to and so I'm glad the process worked."
Snyder did acknowledge the protesters saying he hopes Trump will bridge the divide once he's in office.
"We should give him time to work through that, he's been reaching out to people. I think he had great meetings with President Obama and other people during this process, so lets see this process continue," Snyder said.
Protesters say they're not giving up, with their sights set on the next push: getting Trump impeached once he's sworn in.
