What motivates electors to break their pledges? In the twentieth century, it was a combination of right-wing ideology and medical advice.
1960: Henry D. Irwin
1968: Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey
1972: Roger MacBride
1976: Mike Padden
1988: Margarette Leach
DEBUNKING MYTHS:
EC sets the record straight on alleged failures of the Electoral College system.
1824: Jackson-Adams
1876: Hayes-Tilden
1888: Cleveland-Harrison
Tales of the Unfaithful Electors One of the common criticisms of the U.S. Electoral College is that the electors are not legally bound to vote for a candidate. The "faithless electors" have never been more than one or two isolated individuals in any election, and their breach of trust has never changed the outcome of an election. Still, the idea that a single elector could change the course of history is both romantic and frightening. One misconception about the Electoral College is that the founders intended for the electors to use their individual judgment in selecting a candidate. A few people at the constitutional convention may have held this view. But at the very first contested Presidential election (that is, in 1796), electors were already pledged to a candidate. Indeed, one Pennsylvania elector pledged to Adams voted for Jefferson, prompting this complaint, not so different from something you might see posted on the Internet: What, do I chuse Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas Jefferson shall be President? No! I chuse him to act, not to think.What remains the most amazing thing about unfaithful electors is that they continue to appear. Both political parties have been inexplicably careless in their selection of electors and have failed to impress upon them the civic duty of being faithful to their pledge. Many states do not even have a formal pledge process, and fewer have enacted sanctions for failure to vote as pledged. (The Supreme Court has ruled that states may empower parties to require a formal pledge from anyone running as a Presidential elector. Ray v Blair, 343 US 214 (1952).) Remember, too, that in the one election that was so close that a single vote could have changed the outcome (1876), every elector voted as pledged. (The popular vote in 1876 was riddled with fraud. Direct election proponents should ponder this contrast for a bit.) James Russell Lowell, a Republican elector from Massachusetts, indicated that he had been approached to switch his vote, but he would not do so. "It is a plain question of trust," he wrote to a friend. Unfortunately, not every elector reached the same conclusion. Here are some stories from the rogues gallery of U.S. elections:
Henry D. Irwin Henry D. Irwin was a Republican-pledged elector from Oklahoma who voted instead for Harry Byrd, a conservative from Virginia. CBS Reports found Irwin and interviewed him. He said that he "could not stomach" Nixon. Irwin held the view that the founding fathers never intended for the "indigent, the nonproperty owners" to have a vote for the president. It came out that he had worked with an attorney in Montgomery, Alabama on a plan to get Democratic and Republican electors to reject both Kennedy and Nixon in favor of a conservative candidate. On November 20, 1960, Irwin sent a telegram to the other 218 Republican electors, as follows: I am Oklahoma Republican elector. The Republican electors cannot deny the election to Kennedy. Sufficient conservative Democratic electors available to deny labor Socialist nominee. Would you consider Byrd President, Goldwater Vice President, or wire any acceptable substitute. All replies strict confidence.Irwin got 40 replies, some expressing interest. But when the votes were counted, only Irwin has betrayed the Republican ticket. Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey Dr. Bailey was a Republican-pledged elector from North Carolina who voted instead for George Wallace, the American party candidate. Bailey was nominated as elector at the state party convention, but he claimed that nobody talked to him about a commitment to vote for a particular candidate. There was no formal pledge. He also claimed that he forgot all about it until a party official reminded him of his electoral duties. As the time for the election drew near, Bailey was disturbed that President-elect Nixon was appointing men like Henry Kissinger and Daniel Moynihan to office and that he had asked Chief Justice Earl Warren to stay on until June of 1969. He decided to lodge his protest by voting for Wallace. Bailey excused himself by saying that the congressional district he resided in had voted for Wallace, and that he was giving them a voice. But when pressed by Strom Thurmond at a Senate hearing, Bailey indicated that it was purely a protest, and that he wouldn't have done it if it would have made a difference in the outcome of the election. Roger MacBride Every time Richard Nixon was a candidate, one of his electors betrayed him. In 1972 it was Roger MacBride. MacBride was heir to the estate of Laura Ingalls-Wilder, author of "Little House on the Prarie," and he co-produced the television series. More significantly, MacBride had run for the Republican nomination for governor of Vermont in 1964, where he became one of the first candidates to describe himself as a "libertarian-type" Republican. By 1972, MacBride was a Republican elector from Virginia. He used his office to vote for the nominees of the new Libertarian party, John Hospers and Toni Nathan (Trivia note: this also made Nathan first woman ever to receive an electoral college vote). Four years later, MacBride was the Libertarian party nominee for President. (He failed to receive any electoral votes.) Roger MacBride returned to the Republican party in 1983 and stayed active in politics in Florida until his death in 1995. He was instrumental in founding a Republican libertarian caucus. Mike Padden Padden was a lawyer from Spokane who served as an elector for the Republicans in Washington state. Gerald Ford had lost the election, and Padden rubbed salt in the wound by voting for Ronald Reagan. Oddly enough, Padden's protest was not against Ford but against Jimmy Carter, who he said "consistenly refused to do anything to protect the most basic civil right of all, the right to life itself." He voted for Reagan because he felt that he had the proper pro-life position. Padden remained active in politics. He has since been a state legislator in Washington and currently is a district court judge in Spokane. Margarette Leach Although most of the recent unfaithful electors have been Republicans with right-wing views, the Democrats have not been immune. Margarette Leach, a nurse and Democratic activist from Huntington, West Virginia, served as an elector in 1988. After her nomination, she was shocked to learn from a doctor colleague that presidential electors could vote for whomever they pleased. (Do you suppose she goes to her lawyer for medical advice?) "I felt this was not a good situation," she said. "I wanted to call attention to it." Leach tried to convince her fellow electors to join her in placing Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen atop her ticket and Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in the Vice President slot. They didn't, but Leach did anyway. |
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