Three “Faithless Electors”
Presidential electors pressured to abandon Bush
Tanya L. Green, J.D.
December 15, 2000
In a last-ditch attempt to capture the White House, some Democrats are pressuring Republican electors pledged to President-elect George W. Bush to desert their candidate. The electors who comprise the Electoral College will
meet on December 18 in their respective state capitols to cast their votes for their party’s candidate…
Technically, faithless electors voting for Gore would be right in keeping with the Founders intent, and perfectly legitimate. As far as I’m concerned, it would be putting right what was made wrong by the court. (But I think it is a bad idea, no matter how much fun it would be. It would just be too hard on Gore. But man, wouldn’t it be cool if the electors elected him, and HE DECLINED? That would really stick in George’s craw!!)
As for two weeks to get ready, Gore would have no problem at all. Remember, he’s already ready: he’s the vice president. He wouldn’t have to completely redo the staff overnight. He wouldn’t have to redo it at all…
Amusing article…Strikes me more as Right wing panic and paranoia than anything else. Sure, it is probably true that a few disgruntled Democrats are contacting the electors and trying to get them to switch. But, I don’t think it is any serious organized effort AND I don’t think it is likely to have any effect anyway. (That is, barring some big scandal about the election breaking over this weekend…After these last 5 weeks, I’ve learned to never say never!) I assume both parties choose their electors very carefully to be sure that they are unlikely to be disloyal. I’d be shocked if even one changed their vote.
[Now back to my phone list of Bush electors!!!..Just kidding. ]
I will eat a live stoat if any member of the electoral college bats for the other team. The only times it’s happened in recent history have been blowouts. Ain’t gonna happen here. Pipedreaming by braindead Democrats and paranoia from braindead Republicans.
Actually the Framers didn’t expect the electors to be faithful to anyone, but they also didn’t anticipate them being faithless. The Framers assumed that all the electors would be a group of wise men who would choose the president.
The situation described in the OP is just having one or two of them screw with the results.
It only took until 1789 before somebody figured out how to turn the Electoral College into a force for political partisanship. You couldn’t sneak that one past Hamilton. He arranged to have electors he knew that were loyal to Washington to not put Adams’ name on all the ballots to make sure that Washington would be president. He also knew enough to count up enough votes to make sure that Adams would still finish second and be named VP.
In that case, andros, do you mind if I call my friendly, neighborhood elector and mention to him that if he switches allegence, he will be able to see you eat a live stoat? That, plus the publicity, might be enough to make any elector change.
I have to agree with andros: there’s approximately zero chance that it will happen. (Sign me up for half of that stoat if I’m wrong. ;))
However, Stoidela is absolutely right: if it happened, it would be every bit as fair as the fact that the popular vote winner didn’t win the Presidency. The rules set up by the Constitution say that the electors get to choose the President. (I daresay laws banning ‘faithless electors’ might be found in violation of the ‘original intent’ of the Framers. :D)
As tired as I am about hearing that who won the popular vote is just plain irrelevant, I think it would be sweet justice if three Bush electors did vote for Gore, no matter that I’m more likely to win the next Powerball lottery than for that to happen.
Oh yeah - cwfa.org is Concerned Women for America, Beverly LaHaye’s group. LaHaye is married to Tim LaHaye, best known as co-author of the Left Behind books.
CWfA explains why it was founded:
And here I thought I could be a Christian and a feminist. Thank God I’ve been shown the truth!
The EC article says:
I don’t see how CWfA can say that. I’m sure they’ve always advocated ‘strict construction’ of the Constitution. And the Framers clearly intended the electors to make up their own minds.
Actually, what the ‘Framers’ intended (which is open to much debate since the whole concept was a compromise position between two completely different concepts: choice of executive by the legislature and choice of executive by popular vote) is totally irrelevant, since the method by which electors selected the President was totally changed with the advent of Amendment XII to the Constitution. This amendment fully takes into account the concept of faction, since it was the difficulty of faction that lead to the unhappy results of 1796 and 1800. It is therefor quite proper to think of electors as representatives of their party, and, as such, politically obligated to carry out their duty with this in mind, whatever the law or the original intent of the ‘Framers’ was.
The beginning of Amendment XII:
The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.
The lines in there that say: “all persons voted for as President,” and “and of the number of votes for each” sounds to me like the framers of this amendment weren’t visualizing “winner take all.” Actually it sounds like the opposite. One of us seems to be misreading it. JDM
No, the 12th Amendment doesn’t mean there has to be a winner take all system in the Electoral College. I also don’t think that was DSYoungEsq’s point. He was merely stating that the present system has been changed to make it much more likely that the president and vice president will be from the same party.
Only a handful of states have ever deliberately split their votes in the Electoral College and I don’t believe any state has had such a scenario in the 20th Century except in the cases of “faithless” electors.
I am not a politician or historian, but I think West Virginia split its electoral vote in 1916. Also, Nebraska and Maine currently divide their electoral votes depending on who won the individual congressional districts and the overall state. This usually doesn’t matter, because there are only a few districts, so the winner of them normally wins the state. Had Gore (or Bush) been able to win a district in either of these states but still lose the state, the electoral votes would be split.
In 1952, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring electors to pledge their loyalty to a party was constitutional. It was Ray v. Blair (343 U.S. 214).
From what I can discern from reading the opinion (and I’m not a lawyer) is that the majority opinion (written by Stanley Reed) relied a lot on historical precedent in the operation of the Electoral College.
DS said: “It is therefor quite proper to think of electors as representatives of their party, and, as such, politically obligated to carry out their duty with this in mind.” Certainly today that means winner take all. The fact that the amendment refers to “all persons voted for” tells me that the authors of the amendment envisioned a slate of electors that might cast votes for several different candidates. As nothing is said about party, I have to think the authors envisisioned an unbound slate of electors. Certainly I do not see where the concept of “faith” comes in from the amendment. JDM
Question: Does anyone know the exact procedure of the EC vote? Is it a roll call? One huge written ballot with final total tallied afterward? Do all the electors from a state vote in unison, or is it organized some other way?
I was just wondering about the likelihood of Joe Schmo Bush-elector who wants to cast a protest vote against Bush (though not necessarily want to upset the whole apple cart). If he’s from Wyoming, could he do so safely if he saw all the other states preceding him voted along party lines? Or does everyone not know for certain how their colleagues voted until after the fact?
I believe that the electors gather in the 50 state capitals and the DC City Hall. Each elector is given a ballot with a space to write in their choices for pres and VP. Then it’s signed and sent on to Washington. There are six copies made of each ballot.
You should be able to go to your state capital and watch the process. If not, the ballots are kept on file in your state and are available for inspection.
JDM, I am sorry that you took what I said to mean that I thought ‘winner take all’ was required. I didn’t say anything of the type, as BobT correctly noted.
What I SAID was that an individual elector has a duty to vote as he has pledged to his party he will vote in seeking the office of presidential elector for his state. Thus, if Nebraska selected by its election process three Republican and one Democratic electors, one would expect the electors to vote accordingly. This has nothing to do with ‘winner take all’, obviously.
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