There is no constitutional provision or federal law requiring electors to vote according to the popular vote results in their state. Electors are not always faithful.
(UserTwoSix/Wikimedia Commons)
According to FairVote, over the first 58 presidential elections, electors have cast “deviant” votes 90 times. In other words, there have been 90 instances in which an elector voted for someone other than the presidential nominee they were pledged to.
Reasons vary, but overwhelmingly, electors are “faithless” for two reasons. To change their vote when their nominee dies or choose a candidate that was not even on the ballot. In the 23,507 electoral votes cast in history, only once has an elector voted for their nominee’s opponent.
In the 59th presidential election, the Associated Press' election results have Joe Biden winning 306 electoral votes and Donald Trump receiving 232. Therefore, Trump would have needed at least 38 electors to break from their pledge and change their vote from Biden to Trump.
According to the New York Times, no electors were faithless during the official electoral vote on December 14th. The 306 electors pledged to Biden voted for him, and the 232 electors pledged to Trump voted for him.
How electors are chosen
According to the National Archives, electors for the electoral college are chosen through a two-part process. First, at the state level, each political party nominates a slate of electors to be approved before each general election. Second, the voters choose which party’s slate goes into effect by casting their ballots.
One complex way to think about it is when you are casting your ballot for President; you are actually voting for which group of electors will represent your state.
Suppose more people choose the Democratic candidate for president. In that case, the electors chosen by the democrats will cast the final electoral votes for your state. If the Republican candidate for president receives the most votes, the electors chosen by the republicans will cast the final electoral votes.
That is why it is so rare for a faithless elector to vote for the opposing candidate. Why would they want to vote for someone from the opposing political party?
The largest deviation of electoral votes
Horace Greeley ran for president in 1872 as a nominee for the newly formed and short-lived Liberal Republican Party. He was nominated by the Democratic Party that thought he was their best bet to deliver an election victory of the candidates available. Greeley’s goal was to beat the Republican and incumbent 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
According to the Library of Congress, Greeley was the founder and editor of the New York Tribune. The newspaper was founded in 1841, and Greeley remained an editor for thirty years before his run for president. During that time, the newspaper became one of the most significant in the U.S.
Greeley earned 66 electors during the 1872 election, losing badly to Grant.
According to Don C. Seitz’s Horace Greeley, after losing to Grant, Greeley returned to work at the New York Tribune. Unfortunately, there was an organized movement within the newspaper to get rid of him. Greeley stopped sleeping and was soon under medical care. He was dead before the end of November.
With Greeley deceased, the 66 electors still had to cast their ballots. According to FairVote, only three electors voted for him, leaving 63 that voted for others. 42 electors voted for Independent-Democrat Thomas Hendricks, 18 voted for B. Gratz Brown (Greeley’s running mate), two for Democrat Charles Jenkins, and one for Democrat David Davis.
(Horace Greeley - U.S. National Archives/Wikimedia Commons)
26 deviant electors through the years
Aside from the 1872 and 1796 presidential elections, according to FairVote, there have been 26 electors from 2016 to 1808 that have proven to be faithless.
- In 2016, an abnormally high 10 electors deviated. The eight Democrat electors that deviated from Hilary Clinton voted for Bernie Sanders (3), Colin Powell (3), Faith Spotted Eagle, and John Kasich. The two Republican electors that deviated from Donald Trump voted for Ron Paul and John Kasich.
- In 2004, an anonymous Democratic elector voted for John Edwards, the running mate of presidential nominee John Kerry. According to Nina Agrawal of the LA Times, the elector misspelled Edwards, casting their ballot for “John Ewards.”
- In 2000, Democratic elector Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained from voting to protest the lack of congressional representation for Washington D.C.
- In 1988, Democratic elector Margaret Leach flipped her presidential and vice-presidential votes to draw attention to the fact that electors could vote for whoever they wanted to.
- In 1976, Republican elector Mike Padden voted for Ronald Reagan instead of candidate Gerald Ford. Ford lost that election to Jimmy Carter, but interestingly, Reagan would go on to win the next two presidential elections in 1980 and 1984.
- In 1972, Republican elector Roger L. MacBride voted for Libertarian candidate John Hospers instead of Republican candidate Richard Nixon.
- In 1968, Republican elector Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey voted for American Independence Party candidate George Wallace, instead of Republican candidate Richard Nixon. Of note, Bailey admitted in a Senate hearing that if his vote had altered the election result, he would have voted for Nixon.
- In 1960, Republican elector Henry D. Irwin voted for Harry F. Byrd instead of Republican Richard Nixon. Irwin did not like either Nixon or Democrat John F. Kennedy for president and actually tried to convince other electors to be faithless like he was. Ultimately he was unsuccessful in convincing any other pledged elector to deviate.
- In 1956, Democratic elector W. F. Turner voted for Walter Burgwyn Jones instead of the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.
- In 1948, Democratic elector Preston Parks voted for States Rights Party candidate Strom Thurmond instead of Democratic candidate Harry Truman.
- In 1820, Democratic-Republican elector William Plummer, Sr. voted for John Quincy Adams instead of James Monroe. Both Monroe and Adams were Democratic-Republicans, but Adams was not on the ballot in 1820. Interestingly, Adams would be elected president in the next election in 1824.
- In 1808, seven Democratic-Republican electors did not cast their ballots for who they were supposed to. Six of them voted for vice-presidential candidate George Clinton, instead of presidential candidate James Madison. One elector did not vote because he was sick (this was not counted as a faithless vote because the elector would have most likely voted faithfully if he had cast a ballot).
(Samuel Miles by Henry Bryan Hall/Wikimedia Commons)
The first faithless elector
Samuel Miles, an elector for Pennsylvania, made history in 1796. According to FairVote, Miles was supposed to vote for Federalist candidate John Adams but cast his elector ballot for Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson.
Miles’ change of vote did not change the election's outcome, but it made it close. In that time, there were 139 electoral votes spread over 16 states. John Adams became the second U.S. president beating Thomas Jefferson by a razor-thin 3 electoral votes. Jefferson landed on his feet and became the third U.S. president four years later.
According to the National Archives, Samuel Miles was a colonel during the Revolutionary War under General George Washington's command. He was also a veteran of the French and Indian War. He rose from a sergeant to a captain during that seven years-long war that ended in 1763.
During the Revolutionary War, Miles was captured and during the Battle of Long Island. He became a prisoner of war for two years. After his release in 1778, he could not gain the rank of brigadier general and decided to leave the army.
He turned his attention to business and politics. His most notable act was casting his ballot for the Democratic-Republican Jefferson when it should have been for the Federalist Adams in 1796.
In 1798, Miles made his party switch official when he ran for Congress as a Democratic-Republican. According to Michael J. Dubin’s United States Congressional Elections, 1788–1997, Miles got only about 30% of the vote and convincingly lost the election to Federalist Robert Waln.
Not all electors can deviate
According to FairVote, 14 states disallow faithless electors altogether, meaning if an elector attempts to vote against their pledge, the vote is immediately voided and remedied. Those states fall into three categories.
North Carolina and Oklahoma cancel the vote and fine and/or charge the elector with a misdemeanor. Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Washington all abide by the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act, which triggers effective resignation from any elector who violates their pledge and works to fill the vacancy. Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Utah void any vote that is not cast as pledged.
Three states allow faithless electors but punish them severely if they choose that path. A faithless elector in California can be fined up to $1,000 or be imprisoned for 16–36 months. In New Mexico, an elector casting a faithless ballot is a 4th-degree felony, and in South Carolina, a faithless ballot equals a criminal conviction.
Final thoughts
To this day, Samuel Miles remains the only faithless elector to vote for the opposing party’s nominee. On December 14th, nobody new joined him. According to NPR, Congress will certify the electoral vote on January 6th.
Electors have never factored into a presidential election outcome in American history, and 2020 did not change that. The electoral college was invented and put into practice by the ratification of the constitution in 1788. After 59 elections, 232 years, and significant advancements in technology, it might be time to update the process.