A few states have laws that invalidate faithless votes. After John Edwards received a vote for president in 2004, Minnesota enacted a law that allows a faithless elector to be expelled and replaced with an alternate.
Ooh, I see. So once they start that game it spirals down. Say Romney 268, Obama 268, Brown 1, Casey 1, the Dems get a sneaky idea to put Brown out of the running by having TWO electors vote for Casey. So it is Romney 268, Obama 267, Casey 2, Brown 1. Since the House can only vote for the top 3, then Brown is out.
So the GOP sees this little trick and has THREE electors hold out for Brown making it Obama 267, Romney 266, Brown 3, Casey 2 leaving Casey out in the cold.
The Dems see this and have FOUR electors vote for Casey…and it’s turtles all the way down. Who knows how that would play out. 538 is not evenly divisible by four. I wonder what the best Nash solution would be there to make sure that your party got the #3 guy while keeping Romney/Obama in the top two..
As I think about it, it would probably (if everyone communicated properly) end up Romney 135, Obama 135, Brown 134, Casey 134. I would assume that for Constitutional purposes, a tie for third would still be the top three.
Assume that in case of a tie for third place, both candidates are eligible for the House vote (is this true?)
In that case, one way to game the system would be to make sure Romney and your compromise candidate both have the same number of votes. Nothing the other side does could keep them out of the House vote.
Well, almost nothing. If the Republicans did that, and the Democrats caught wind of it, they may have one of their electors vote for Romney to keep a tie from forming.
In 2012, this is all just silly talk, because everyone would know that Romney would easily be able to get 26 states.
(Edit) This scenario only makes sense if you have a 269-D, <=268-R, and 1+ - I split. If both main parties have 269, then I agree with jtgain.
How would this help the Dems? If one votes for Romney, then that guarantees that their compromise candidate would finish 4th, right?
That doesn’t mean their vote doesn’t count.
EDIT: Okay, maybe it does.