Photo submitted by Ash Khare Ash Khare at his seat in the chamber of the state House of Representatives on Monday where the Electoral College vote was held.

Photo submitted by Ash Khare
The formal ballots used by Pennsylvania’s members of the Electoral College. Each elector had to write the name of the candidate they support on the ballot.

From India to Warren County to the national spotlight.

Ash Khare was one of 538 electors casting Electoral College votes across the country on Monday.

His Monday also included interviews with Fox News and CNN and a lunch at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion to boot.

“It was much more than what I thought it would be,” Khare said on Monday night after returning to Warren. “They did it in the tradition and the methodology of how it is being done over the last 57 years. It was just absolutely awesome.”

Khare said that he was one of two electors given the task of escorting Gov. Tom Wolf into the chamber once the Electoral College was organized.

After Wolf spoke, the electors got down to business.

Khare said that each elector was given a card for president and another for vice president.

“We had to write the name,” he said. “Then there was this lady that stood in the center with a box that was used to capture the ballots.”

They were tallied up – 20 for Trump and 20 for Pence.

The electors then had to sign six copies of documentation that certified the results prior to the luncheon at the governor’s residence.

CNN posted a feature on Khare early Monday morning. He said they picked up his story after two Philadelphia media outlets wrote about him.

He said the CNN reporter spent two hours with him on Monday night and they talked about, among other things, his journey to the post of elector and the voluminous number of emails, phone calls and letters he has received.

“This has for the time being turned my life upside down,” Khare told CNN. “I can’t find my bills in the mail. I can’t find emails that pertain to my business. Even my rural post office had to designate someone specifically to deliver my mail because there is simply too much of it.”

In interviews with the Times Observer, and again in the CNN piece, Khare reiterated that he would cast his vote for President-Elect Donald Trump.

“I am doing my duty,” he told CNN. “I am for Mr. Trump. I am for his agenda. I am totally excited. The way he is picking his cabinet, the way he is doing his thing. I believe the greatest days of this country are yet to come. And I am glad I am alive to be able to see it.”

“I got picked because, I believe, (there is) no way I am going to change my opinion to not vote for Donald Trump,” Khare told the Times Observer earlier this month. “I know that that’s why they picked me. I don’t know. I can make up stories. I’m lucky. I’m honored that Donald Trump picked me.”

The electors — a blend of senior members of the Republican Party hierarchy, GOP activists or early and ardent Trump loyalists — told the Associated Press they felt bound to honor the voters who had given Trump a crucial victory in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes are fifth most in the nation, and gave Trump a critical boost as he became the first Republican since 1988 to win the state. Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by fewer than 45,000 votes out of more than 6 million cast, or by less than 1 percent.

In the hours before the vote, more than 200 demonstrators waved signs and chanted on the steps outside the Pennsylvania Capitol. Some drove more than two hours to be there, with the faint hope of changing the electors’ minds.

“No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” they chanted at one point, the AP reported. Later, they chanted, “No treason, no Trump.”

After the result of the secret ballot was announced, the electors and their family members cheered and clapped. Boos and shouts of “shame on you” rained down from the public gallery above.

Lawrence Tabas, an elector and the state Republican Party’s counsel, told the AP there had been “not one bit” of discussion among electors about voting for someone other than Trump.

Khare said that the chamber was “very quiet” except for “some people in the balcony (that) started to raise hell and do something. Then they were asked to leave.”

Throughout the day, the enormity of the moment – the significance in what he was involved in – wasn’t lost on him.

“This is one of those lifetime experiences that ranks right after my experience of getting married and having my three kids,” he said. “I have had many many accolades in my life professionally (and) socially… but this was a momentous occasion when I took part in electing the next president of the United States.

“It’s a very high honor for me. I was really, really proud to represent Warren County (and) honored that Trump picked me. It was a very humbling experience.”