(Sometimes referred to as “faithless electors”.)
I’ve searched the Internet to see how many times this has happened and it seems to be a very rare occurrence.
(Remember I am only looking for Presidential electoral votes that were changed).
2004 - one electoral vote was cast for John Edwards.
2000 - one electoral vote was not cast.
1988 - one vote went to Lloyd Bentsen.
1976 - one vote went to Ronald Reagan.
1972 - one vote went to John Hospers.
1956 - one vote went to Herman Talmadge.
1820 - the death of 3 electors caused 3 electoral votes not to be cast.
If there are any others you can find, please let me know.
What I found to be the best reference on this subject is:
Thanks Little Nemo
That was a good reference.
The link I had posted was quite good but it only mentioned electors changing their votes because of mistakes or for some obscure candidate (John Hospers).
What is interesting is that there seem not to be multiple faithless electors in any Presidential vote. So if 2 or more vote for Ryan, Sanders, Cruz, et al. it would be a huge (but ineffectual) protest.
Well, I used the information I found and updated my web page here.
(Scroll to the bottom for the “faithless electors”.)
Saint Cad electors changing their pledged vote is a pretty rare occurrence. Quite often, when it occurs, it is done after their pledged candidate is assured of winning.
Huh? 15 faithless electors in 1960, 23 in 1836, 6 in 1808. And that’s not counting the 63 faithless electors in 1872, but in that case the candidate did have the temerity to die first so you can’t really blame them.
My mistake on 1836, but the other elections were presidential electors changing the electoral votes of their state for the presidential race. I don’t see so-called unpledged electors as a significant difference for the purpose of this discussion.