Last week, I wrote an article called, “What Happens To Your Vote” which provided a basic understanding of the procedure regarding the Electoral College. Since the election on Tuesday, I have seen a number of articles and posts regarding “faithless Electors” and their ability to change the outcome of the election to reflect the popular vote. I mentioned this term in my first article, but it never struck me as the lifeline to which so many Clinton supporters cling this week.
“Faithless Electors” are electors who vote against their party affiliations. There have only been 157 instances of “faithless Electors” in the 57 previous presidential elections held in the United States, and many of those cases have taken place because the Electors’ candidate passed away (i.e. the election of 1872). No election result has ever been changed due to the actions of “faithless Electors.”
Let’s back up a little bit. Electors cannot hold Federal office, but they are usually party officials. When someone votes for the President and Vice President, they are really voting for all the Electors representing the corresponding political party in that state. Maine and Nebraska are the only states that do not exclusively send Electors from the state’s winning party to vote. Those Electors will meet in December to cast their votes.
As I said in my last article, there are no Federal laws that dictate how Electors must vote, but many states including Washington have legal consequences for Electors who refuse to vote in accordance with the party favored by that state’s popular vote. In theory, any Elector in a state without these regulations could vote however he or she wishes and could potentially be bribed by a political party to sway his or her vote. In practice, Electors almost always vote as expected because they are so closely tied to their party affiliations.
Many Clinton supporters are lobbying to convince Electors to vote “faithlessly.” While this election is unprecedented in a myriad of ways, Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the election at this point are not much better than mine. Here’s why:
Congress will meet to count the electoral votes in early January of next year. If even one Representative and one Senator dispute the results, all of Congress will meet to decide how the votes should be handled. If the House and the Senate agree to discount the “faithless” votes, it will be so. If they do not agree one way or the other, the decision to count or discount individual electoral votes is deferred to state’s Secretary of State. In this particular election, the House and the Senate would likely agree to disregard any unexpected electoral votes for Clinton because they both have a Republican majority. All of Hillary’s electoral votes that will be honored have already been projected. Any others will be contested.
Electors have one other option: they can abstain from voting. If enough Electors simply refuse to vote for either candidate, neither will reach 270 electoral votes. I explained the process in more detail previously, but the outcome of the election would fall to a Congressional vote. The House and the Senate both have a Republican majority, so the result would almost undoubtedly still be in Donald Trump’s favor.
I absolutely encourage lobbying and protesting; free speech exists for a reason. However, it would be much more productive to protest the Electoral College and lobby to change the election procedure to prevent this from happening again. The President is the face of our nation, and each vote should count equally. We shouldn’t have to depend on 270 Electors to vouch for our candidates; we should only have to depend on each other to determine the next leader of our country.
