The Indispensable Electoral College by Tara Ross

Author:Tara Ross
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621577072
Publisher: Gateway Editions
Published: 2017-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

FAITHLESS ELECTORS, THROUGH THE AGES

“The election is over. This should stop,” a Republican elector told a newspaper reporter in 2000.37 She was referring to a lobbying effort spearheaded by a group of Democrats. Those activists hoped to convince electors pledged to George W. Bush to vote for Al Gore, since Gore had won the individual popular vote nationwide.38 Naturally, the electors were unimpressed. In fact, they were mostly annoyed by the effort.

One elector in Indiana was receiving hundreds of emails, even before the recounts in Florida were resolved. He was the chairman of the Indiana Republican Party and not very likely to change his mind.39 Another Florida elector was soon feeling similar pressure. “I told a caller last night that 1 a.m. is not a real good time to try and get my vote,” she joked.40 She had no intention of voting for Gore, either. She wanted to cast a ballot for Bush. An Arizona elector, Joe Arpaio, agreed: “I am getting aggravated with people calling me and trying to get me to change my vote.”41

In many ways, the 2000 election was the toughest test that the Electoral College had faced in a long time. As few as two faithless electors could have changed the result, tying the vote and throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Three faithless electors could have handed the election to Gore all on their own.

In the end, not even one Republican elector changed his vote. Only one elector—pledged to Gore—voted differently than expected. Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained to make a political statement about the lack of congressional representation for the District of Columbia.42 Her abstention was admittedly a bit odd, given the closeness of the election, but it appears that her vote was opportunistic. If Gore had needed the vote to win, she would not have chosen that particular moment to make a political statement. “I would never do anything that would cause George Bush to have the presidency,” she told one blogger at the time.43

Indeed, presidential electors have historically been remarkably reluctant to break voters’ trust. If the Founders expected electors to deliberate independently, few seem to have noticed. No election outcome has ever been changed by a faithless elector. Instead, voters have treated the office of elector as if it were a rubber stamp. They expect electors simply to endorse the outcome of statewide popular elections, and electors have generally complied with this expectation. This situation has endured since the early 1800s, when states and political parties first began choosing electors based on their party loyalty and other similar factors.44

The widespread expectation of elector loyalty is reinforced still more by the manner in which electors are chosen. The details vary by state, but electors are often chosen at state party conventions during a presidential election year.45 They are typically grassroots activists who spent time working for their political party or the party’s candidate, and they were probably selected precisely because of this hard work and loyalty. Candidates for elector are hoping their

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