I was just reading the “winner takes all” election thread, and I remembered something I’ve always been curious about. I remember in some high-school civics class or other looking at a map of the 1976 election and noticing that one elector in Washington State went for Reagan that year. Even though this was in Washington State and he had presumably lived through the 70’s, my teacher could not recall what had happened. What was the story with that? What was his problem with Ford and why did he choose Reagan as his protest vote?
And, civics has been a while ago here, but my understanding is that there’s nothing constitutionally wrong with an elector choosing whoever they want, but that all of the states have various laws that make electing contrary to how the vote went a crime. So theoretically, if the election were really close, a few electors could jump ship and swing it the other direction and just have to pay a fine or spend a few weeks in the slammer. A small price to pay to alter the course of a nation? So did the guy from Washington get charged with anything or face any other repercussions?
From Wikipedia, Mike Padden was the elector in question.
Hmm… interesting. I guess according to this article, nobody’s ever been punished for it and only 24 states have laws against it, although it seems like most of them require electors to pledge to vote for who they’re supposed before they get certified, unlike my after the fact do-the-crime-do-the-time scenario.
Since in most states you can apparently get away with this, I’m surprised you don’t see more electoral grandstanding like Elector Padden’s!
Mike Padden, with a slight alteration of the spelling of his last name, went on to front the well-known band Faith No More.
As recently as 1969, Congress debated whether it should count the vote of a “faithless elector” (specifically, a Republican elector who voted for third party candidate George Wallace).
Congress voted to do so, but the vote was close–228 to 170 in the House and 58 to 33 in the Senate. (A majority of those present and voting in both houses would have been necessary to reject.) Failing to count the vote, however, would not have restored it to Nixon.
For a good discussion of the legal ramifications of faithless electors, including the above case, see here.
And was a faithless elector at that. Too bad he didn’t join Faithless. I too am wondering why he did it: until then, I can’t get no sleep.
If that were true, he’d also have been the youngest elector in history. Mike Patton was eight years old in 1976.
According to wikipedia, Padden indicated he voted for Reagan (rather than Ford) because he felt that he had the proper pro-life position. He’s currently a district court judge in Spokane, Washington.
Or maybe you’re wondering why the other guy joined that band? Hard to tell if they were being serious or just ironic… but I digress.