Faithless Elector

On 158 occasions, electors have cast their votes for president or vice president in a different manner than that prescribed by the legislature of the state they represent. Of those, 71 votes were changed because the original candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote. Two votes were not cast at all when electors chose to abstain from casting their electoral vote for any candidate. The remaining 85 were changed by the elector's personal interest or perhaps by accident. Usually, the faithless electors act alone. An exception was in 1836 when 23 Virginia electors changed their vote together. Still, no faithless elector has ever changed the outcome of any election.

Political parties choose their slate of electors in each state, and they generally select party members with a reputation for high loyalty to the party and its candidate. Moreover, a faithless elector runs a risk of censure and other political retaliation from his party. Thus, the parties have generally been successful in keeping their electors faithful: if we leave out the cases in which a candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote, there have been 87 failures in a universe of 21,610 pledged electors, giving a failure rate of 0.4%.There have been a total of 21,888 electors. All of the 69 electors in 1789 and the 132 electors in 1792 are considered to be unpledged, because the party system didn't start affecting presidential elections until after Washington's retirement. The 63 electors for Greeley in 1872 are considered to be unpledged due to his untimely death and the chaos surrounding his replacement. (The 8 electors for Vice President Sherman in 1912 are considered to be pledged for the purposes of this calculation because they voted as their party instructed.) Additionally, there were 14 Democratic electors in 1960 who were unpledged; all of these electors voted for Harry Byrd for President.

There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. While no faithless elector has ever been punished, the constitutionality of state ''pledge'' laws was brought before the Supreme Court in 1952 ('' Ray V. Blair '', 343 US 214). The court ruled in favor of state's right to legally require electors to vote as pledged, as well as remove electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a function of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors.

LIST OF FAITHLESS ELECTORS

The following is a list of all faithless electors (most recent first). The number preceding each entry is the number of faithless electors for the given year.

(1) elector, pledged for Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards , cast his/her presidential vote for "John Ewards" (''sic''), apparently accidentally. (All of Minnesota's electors cast their vice presidential ballots for John Edwards .) Minnesota's electors cast secret ballots, so unless one of the electors claims responsibility, it is unlikely that the identity of the faithless elector will ever be known. As a result of this incident, Minnesota Statutes were amended to provide for public balloting of the electors' votes and invalidation of a vote cast for someone other than the candidate pledged for by the elector.

(1) Elector Barbara Lett-Simmons , pledged for Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman , cast no electoral votes as a protest of Washington D.C.'s lack of statehood, which she described as the federal district's "colonial status".

(1) Elector Margaret Leach , pledged for Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen , instead of casting her votes for the candidates in their positions on the national ticket, cast her presidential vote for Bentsen and her vice presidential vote for Dukakis.

(-) , the electors, pledged to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush , conducted their vote in a secret ballot. When the electors voted for Vice President, one of the votes was for Geraldine Ferraro , the Democratic nominee. After several minutes of confusion, a second ballot was taken. Bush won unanimously in this ballot, and it was this ballot that was reported to Congress.

(1) Elector Mike Padden , pledged for Republican Gerald Ford and Bob Dole , cast his presidential electoral vote for Ronald Reagan , who had challenged Ford for the Republican nomination. He cast his vice presidential vote, as pledged, for Dole.

(1) Elector Roger MacBride , pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew , cast his electoral votes for Libertarian candidates John Hospers and Theodora Nathan . MacBride's vote for Nathan was the first electoral vote cast for a woman in U.S. history.

(1) Elector Lloyd W. Bailey , pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew , cast his votes for American Independent Party candidates George Wallace and Curtis LeMay

(1) Elector Henry D. Irwin , pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. , cast his presidential electoral vote for independent candidate Harry Flood Byrd . Unlike other electors who voted for Byrd for president, Irwin cast his vice presidential electoral vote for Barry Goldwater .

(1) Elector W. F. Turner , pledged for Democrats Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver , cast his votes for Walter Burgwyn Jones and Herman Talmadge .

(1) slates. When the Democratic Party slate won, one of these electors voted for the Democratic nominees Harry Truman and Alben Barkley . The other, Preston Parks , cast his votes for States' Rights Democratic Party candidates Strom Thurmond and Fielding Wright , making him a faithless elector.

(8) vice presidential candidate James S. Sherman died before the election. Eight Republican electors had pledged their votes to him but voted for Nicholas Murray Butler instead.

(4) as their presidential candidate, but ran different candidates for Vice President. The Democratic Party nominated Arthur Sewall and the People’s Party nominated Thomas Watson . The People’s Party won 31 electoral votes but four of those electors voted with the Democratic ticket, supporting Bryan as President and Sewall as Vice President.

(63) changed their votes after Greeley's death. Greeley's remaining three electors cast their presidential votes for Greeley and had their votes discounted by Congress.

(23) of Kentucky as their vice presidential candidate. The 23 electors from Virginia refused to support Johnson with their votes upon learning of the allegation that he had lived with an African-American woman. There was no majority in the Electoral College and the decision was deferred to the Senate, which supported Johnson as the Vice President.

(32) refused to vote for presidential candidate Henry Clay and did not cast a vote for him or for his running mate. All 30 electors from Pennsylvania refused to support the Democratic vice presidential candidate Martin Van Buren , voting instead for William Wilkins .

(7) refused to vote for vice presidential candidate John Calhoun . All seven cast their vice presidential votes for William Smith instead.

(1) pledged to vote for Republican candidate James Monroe , but he cast his vote for John Quincy Adams (also a Republican , but not a candidate in the 1820 election). (Three electors died before casting ballots and were not replaced.)

(4) vice presidential candidate Jared Ingersoll voted for Republican Elbridge Gerry . One Ohio elector did not vote.

(6) were pledged to vote for Republican James Madison as President and George Clinton as Vice President. Instead, they voted for Clinton to be President, with three voting for Madison as Vice President and the other three voting for James Monroe to be Vice President.

(1) , an elector from Pennsylvania , was pledged to vote for Federalist presidential candidate John Adams , but voted for Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson . He cast his other presidential vote as pledged for Thomas Pinckney . (This election took place prior to the passage of the 12th Amendment , so there were not separate ballots for president and vice president.)

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Faithless Elector