According to this story, at least three Republican presidential elector candidates say, if they are elected, they may vote for someone other than Mitt Romney. The story mentions elector candidates by name from Iowa, Nevada, and Texas. Of these three, the Texas elector’s statement has the most punch, because the Texas Republican electors are considered certain to be elected. Thanks to John Koza for the link.
Gee – one more reason to abolish the EVIL timebombe Electoral College.
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Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Is there a surprise in here? Other than his wife, can anyone name a Republican who is delighted this bumbling, crazy, wind sock is their party’s nominee?
HOPE THEY VOTE FOR VIRGIL GOODE
It seems almost every presidential election, except the last one, usually has one faithless elector. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Richard, so if electors are elected, then they can vote for anyone vs appointed ones who have to pledge to vote for the nominee of their party. One state, Montana, passed one of those faithless elector bills, where the electors promise to vote for the nominee of their party, even if one day the Republicans nominated some one like Gus Hall for president.
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by State law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some State laws provide that so called “faithless Electors”; may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party’s candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
Any elector not voting as anticipated underscores the indequacy of the elector college provision and that’s a good thing. All faithless electors are heroes as their action forces reconsideration of the rotten system.
As rotten as the E.C. is, it is much worse when a MORON E.C. Elector votes contrary to the election results.
Most sane States have a law making such contrary voting ILLEGAL — i.e. the vote of the MORON is NOT counted, the MORON is replaced by another robot party hack.
What States make it a FELONY to do the MORON stuff ???
i.e. put such MORONS in jail for 1 or 2 centuries to consider the EVIL of their MORON subversion of election results.
The Electoral College is the best system devised for electing a national leader in any country worldwide.
The EC, as part of our Federal System, has been an essential component in the checks and balances that have prevented a totalitarian take-over or coup as faced in most other parts of the world.
Having 50 state elections for POTUS and VP makes the system more manageable and honest. It lowers the chances of electoral fraud and eliminates the need for nationwide recounts. It increases the chances that our nationwide leaders will be responsive to the whole nation.
Having individual Electors as the final voters instead of an automatic award of Electoral Votes is also an important circuit breaker and is a vital part of the EC system.
It is a good thing when those handful of electors have chosen to exercise their option and right to dissent and vote their conscience. It sends an important signal that there is some defect in the winning candidate, it allows for a final element of thought, wisdom, protest and human control in the process of selecting our leaders.
We should support and expand the function of the EC.
The Libertarian Party in particular should make use of the EC by selecting its Electors with care and encouraging them to campaign as candidates for their office of elector and in support of the Party nominee.
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I must say that it’s refreshing to read a defense of the EC that reflects, at least in part, the actual intentions of the Founding Fathers who created this horrible system for us. They did, in fact, create the EC in part as an acknowledgement that the voting public might not have the ability to choose the best from among the candidates offered. Some among them feared that only those candidates who had for some reason achieved national fame would be elected, or in the absence of such a candidate voters would give their vote only to local, “favorite son” candidates.
But really, now…that was in 1787, when news traveled only as fast as a horse could carry it. Do we truly have any concerns that a candidate’s “defects” will not be revealed in the light of today’s technology and myriad sources of news and opinion?
Ask Mitt, for instance.
But…as for the EC “lowering” the chances of electoral fraud, um…no. Check Ohio 2004. Check four different states in 1876. Check Florida in 2000. And today, check partisan, politically motivated voter ID laws and voter caging efforts in a few dozen states. The more granular the counting method, the more the temptation to commit fraud to grab a few precious EC votes. This is particularly so given modern polling techniques which provide accurate analysis of where fraud can most profitably be committed. NPV lessens the chances of this kind of fraud.
A few questions about the rest of your defense of EC…
How, exactly, has the EC prevented a “totalitarian coup?” Do you envision an angry mob of 40 million storming the White House?
How, exactly, does the EC system make leaders “responsive” to the “whole nation?” Here’s my over/under of the percentage of campaign stops Romney and Obama will make at any states other than FL, NC, VA, NH, OH, WI, IA, and CO between now and election day (excepting the occasional stops to pick up fat checks at max donation per plate dinners) – 0.
And how is it good thing that the election of the president should be given over to unknown, party hack surrogates?
Be Rational, wouldja?
There are a LOT more people out here that feel the exact same way about this presidential preference election process. The rnc and romney have one federal election fraud after another against the delegates and american citizens from the onset of this process. At the conventions, both political parties exhibited their disregard for a fair and just election process by ignoring the delegate vote and scripting the convention via teleprompter. This election is null and void, romney is not a duly elected nominee, only a criminally obtained status by the rnc’s fraud.
Hopefully Gary Johnson will get some electoral votes. That would help him for building his name recognition towards 2016.
Be Rational is correct about the electoral college. It played a pivotal role in the growth of the Libertarian Party. Otherwise it might have been something like the Boston Tea Party of 2006-2012.
If not Gary Johnson, hopefully Ron Paul will get some electoral votes.