Faithless elector turns election topsy turvey

Great Debates
1

It’s December. The nation is still reeling from the incredibly close election, where candidate A won 270 votes and candidate B won 268. But the recounts have been recounted, the lawsuits heard, and that’s the final count, even though candidate B won the popular vote.

Then comes the normally non-newsworthy event in which all the electors cast their ballots. One elector has switched, saying he cannot, in good conscience, vote for candidate A, even though A won his state, because B won the popular vote. This particular elector’s state has no laws concerning an elector’s duty to vote.

Is this a triumph of the Founding Father’s wisdom – that ultimately, a man’s conscience can hold sway and turn the tables of an unjust result? What should be done in this case?

And does it make a difference if A also won the popular vote, but the elector just thinks A’s a jerk?

2

Richie Robb, mayor of South Charleston, West Virginia, has been chosen as one of five Republican electors for WV and has declared he might not vote for Bush. Apparently there’s no legal way to make him. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=275821

3

But since states can also require electors to vote per the actual election results, I see this as a bit of a false dichotomy. You didn’t state the above explicitly as a dichotomy, but I think you know what I mean. As for what should be done, that state should clearly enact a law which disallows faithless electors.

4

In this specific scenario, the EV total is 269-269. That would toss the matter into the House, and unquestionably they would select Bush because each state gets 1 vote. Thus, this would only work if there was one faithless Kerry elector, and Kerry would have had 270 votes had the elector not been faithless.

However, more than 1 faithless elector could indeed switch who the winner was. Also, I can imagine faithless electors happening if they couldn’t vote for their pledged candidate because that candidate in their opinion won through election fraud.

And, any state laws about the duty of electors likely wouldn’t pass US Constitutional muster.

5

Are you sure? From http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A2Sec1:

Nothing in this text authorizes any state to require any elector to vote in a manner dictated by the state’s voters or the state’s legislature. The electors are independent constitutional officers.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College:

6

Some states do have such laws, although you are right in the sense that it’s unclear how enforceable they are. But there are a lot of nuts out there. If I were such an elector, I’d be concerned about the my safety and the safety of my family…

7

Do we cheer this elector for sticking with his conscience, or condemn him for not following his pledge?

8

The answer to that will, of course, break down along partisan lines, more than anything else.

9

As an outside observer, I would have to say that should your scenario come to pass, you folks have a monumental cock-up on your hands. That such a scenario is even possible reveals that the American electoral system is poorly structured. Perhaps the structure made sense when it was enacted (and arguably, it did), but it’s long past time to revise it, as it’s currently possible to fall into an acute constitutional crisis over an election result - never a good thing.

10

Really? I can answer it now, without knowing which way the faithless elector is going and without knowing whose faith he’s breaking with.

He’s wrong. He’s wrong to break faith. It’s dishonorable and underhanded.

Are you really saying it’s wrong only if he breaks in a way you don’t like?

11

Until we abolish the electoral college, theoretically the electoral college is an independent body. At least the Founding Fathers thought of it that way.

I’m going with the conscience angle here.

12

What I find odd about this story is that apparently West Virginia (or the West Virginia Republican Party?), knowing this about Robb BEFORE the election, can’t replace him as a potential elector.

13

Also:

Ibid.

I gather that the original conception of the college was to be made up of learned men who would make up their own minds after carefully considering all the information available to them.

14

The rules of the electoral college make it possible for a candidate to win without the popular vote, therefore any electors should be aware that the candidate who wins their state may not have won the popular vote, therefore any electors who accept the job of elector are doing so with the full knowledge that they may have to vote despite a discrepancy in the electoral versus popular votes.

In other words, the person who is offered the job of elector had damned well better consult his or her conscience about how he or she is going to vote well before accepting the job, and bowing out before the question comes up–before the election. To do otherwise stinks like catbreath.

15

Bricker, I start from a different place than you do. I see the law as a means to an end–but there are other, valid means to the same desireable ends.

This election is fucked. There is so much distrust of the system, well-founded distrust IMO, that the outcome of it is not likely to achieve the desirable ends of uniting the nation. And the electoral college is an outdated, outmoded institution: the country as a whole hates it, but none of us are sure how to get rid of it. Most of the country thinks that elections are popular, not electoral. And most of the country believes that’s how it should be.

So my answer to your question is, “it depends.” I believe that the folks in the electoral college have a moral obligation to enact the popular will.

Much as I hate to say it, if Kerry legitimately loses the popular vote and wins the electoral college by a single vote, I would fully support the decision of a member of the EC to cast her vote for Bush, and in so doing enact the will of the people. I would hope that, in thus falling on her sword, she’d create the outrage necessary to do away with the EC. But even if she didn’t have that effect, I would support her decision.

However, if the popular vote goes to Kerry and one member of the electoral college changes her vote to Bush, I will excoriate her as a vile, repulsive person who has betrayed the country on a fundamental level.

The greater good, in this case, is the enactment of the will of the majority. That’s what I want to see. Her legality, her adherence to tradition, are unimportant to me in this case.

Daniel

16

How is it that you are always unbelievably legalistic when it helps your case, that you are almost defined by your supposed “strict and narrow” adherance to the constitution (again, when it helps your case), but then you rely on things like “dishonor” when the law does not say what you want it to say?
Not that I disagree with you. I think it is absurd that an elector has any choice in the matter at all.

17

But that’s the poing of this thread, jsgoddess. Electors don’t have to vote in any particular way, and any state law that says otherwise is probably unconstitutional and certainly unenforceable.

18

The electoral college deadlocks at 269-269. One brave, forward-looking elector -Republican or Democrat- votes his conscience and defects to John McCain, making it 269-268-1. Still, nobody has a majority. The election is tossed to the House, who according to the Constitution must choose from the top three candidates…

Politicking ensues.

19

…then again, our iconoclastic elector could also choose Tom DeLay.

20

The notion of an elector being faithful to a single candidate wasn’t what the Founding Fathers assumed. They were thinking along the idea of selecting the best man to be president. The idea of political parties and popular elections for President weren’t what they were expecting.