All 38 electoral votes from Texas went to President Trump and Vice President Pence when the electors met at the state capitol in Austin Monday.
The meeting of electors in the Texas House on Monday came days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit led by the state's Republican attorney general to overturn Joe Biden's victory.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is under FBI investigation over allegations that he abused his office to help a donor, falsely claimed that battleground states won by Biden had run "illegal and unconstitutional elections."
There is one elector from each congressional district and Jim Pikl represents District 3, which covers much of Collin County.
“Like most people, I always thought on Nov. 3 I was actually voting for president, and didn't really realize the real vote comes today,” said Pikl, who served as an elector for the first time.
The electors were chosen at the state GOP convention.
“It is really surreal. It is something you kind of plan for a couple of months, to be down here, but as we were driving down last night I was thinking how important this is, and how historic, especially in this election, right,” Pikl said.
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It's an election that has been contested in the courts right up to Monday's gathering, making this normally routine vote something more newsworthy.
“This would be an invisible step under normal circumstances, but people are watching it because every step before this and every step afterward to inauguration will be challenged, although ineffectually,” SMU political science professor Cal Jillson said.
Pikl said it was a day he will remember forever.
“I have a 2-year-old granddaughter and obviously want all the people in my family to know that somebody in their family actually got to do this, because there is only 538 of us every year that get to do this, or every four years, so it is quite an honor,” he said.
Trump carried America's biggest red state with 52% of the vote in November. That's the thinnest winning margin by a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996.
Monday's meeting was held in a largely empty House chamber because of COVID-19 restrictions.
