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Topic: Unpledged electors

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	The Electoral College - "Faithless Electors"
		In the most recent act of Elector abstention, Barbara Lett-Simmons, a Democratic Elector from the District of Columbia, did not cast her vote for Al Gore as expected.
		During the Electoral College process, Leach learned that members of the Electoral College were not required to vote for the candidates they were pledged to.
		Lloyd W. Bailey was an Elector for the Republican Party of North Carolina.
	www.fairvote.org /e_college/faithless.htm (1637 words)

	Electoral College - MSN Encarta
		Under the winner-take-all system, the electors assigned to the candidate who won most of the vote in their state are all represented in the electoral college.
		Under this system, two electors are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote, and the remaining electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s congressional districts.
		A slave, it was agreed, was to count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining a state’s population, and thus the number of its representatives in Congress and the number of its electors to the electoral college.
	encarta.msn.com /encyclopedia_761576768/Electoral_College.html (1727 words)

	Unpledged elector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Electors today are elected in every state by popular vote, and in practice have since the 19th century almost always agreed in advance to vote for a particular candidate -- that is, they are said to have been pledged to that candidate.
		In 1956, unpledged slates were on the ballot in Alabama (20,150 votes, 4.1% of the vote), Louisiana (44,520 votes, 7.2% of the vote and they won four parishes), Mississippi (42,266 votes, 17.3% of the vote and they won seven counties) and South Carolina (88,509 votes, 29.5% of the vote and 21 counties).
		In Alabama, the state Democratic party nominated a mixed slate of electors, five of whom were pledged to Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy and six of whom were unpledged; this slate won the election in that state.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Unpledged_Elector (957 words)

	Alternative Voting Plans for Pre
		Electoral votes are automatically given to the candidate who has received the most popular votes within the state.
		For the very smallest states, those with three electoral votes, all three electors would have to be chosen by the state as a whole.
		If the 1960 presidential vote were aggregated on the basis of one electoral vote to the popular vote winner of each congressional district and two to the popular vote winner of each state, Nixon would have defeated Kennedy 278 to 245, with 14 unpledged electors.
	spot.colorado.edu /~mcguire/alternatevoting.htm (1695 words)

	OpinionJournal - JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
		Voters were asked to choose between Nixon and a slate of "unpledged Democrat electors." A statewide primary had chosen five Democratic electors who were "loyalists" pledged to JFK six who were free to vote for anyone.
		In the end, the six unpledged electors voted for Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia, a leading Dixiecrat, and the other five stuck with their pledge to Kennedy.
		The remaining 176,755 votes were counted as being for the unpledged electors.
	www.opinionjournal.com /forms/printThis.html?id=110004320 (719 words)

	Meanings of History
		But it is still possible, and perfectly legal, for unpledged electors to vote for the candidate of their personal choice.
		The crisis arose in the certification of the electoral vote, and it was to drag on for months before Hayes was finally declared President by an electoral vote of 185 to 184.
		The Constitution provides that the electoral vote shall be counted by the president of the Senate (who in 1876 was a Republican); it provides further that if no candidate secures a majority of the vote, the House of Representatives (then controlled by Democrats) shall select a President.
	pittsford.monroe.edu /pittsfordmendon/socstud/decarlo/AP99/moh19-99.htm (3117 words)

	Sample Chapter for Posner, R.: Breaking the Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the Constitution, and the Courts.
		Although the Electoral College is controversial, one of the principles that it embodies, that of districted rather than at-large elections, is not; and yet districting drives a further wedge between popular majorities and electoral outcomes.
		It was believed that requiring that the electors vote in their home states rather than congregating to vote, that the electors not be federal officials, and that all electoral votes be cast on the same day would minimize these dangers.
		Because Presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral vote rather than the popular vote, they allocate their efforts, their appeals, their choice of running mate, and their policies and appointments when elected differently than they would if the President were chosen by popular vote rather than by the vote of the Electoral College.
	press.princeton.edu /chapters/s7118.html (8634 words)

	Dave's weblog :: November :: 2003
		The result, was a ticket with split loyalties - six of the eleven Electors were "unpledged" and the remaining five were "loyalists" pledged to Kennedy (this was a different situation than in Louisiana and Mississippi - where the Unpledged Electors were on a separate ticket than the Democratic Electors).
		In fact, the citizens did not vote for the electors as a slate, but actually cast eleven ballots for not more than eleven electors (if someone wanted to vote for the six unpledged electors and five of the Republican ones, they could.
		However, the elector whom received that total, Frank M. Dixon, was one of those not pledged to Kennedy.
	www.uselectionatlas.org /BLOG/index.php?m=200311 (1834 words)

	Electoral College (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		It assigns the counting of electoral votes to Congress and provides for the election of a President by the House of Representatives and of a Vice President by the Senate in case either one does not receive the votes of a majority of the whole number of electors appointed.
		All of a state's electoral votes are customarily cast for the presidential candidate of the winning group of presidential electors -- none for the candidates of other groups which may have received many popular votes in November.
		Presidential electors were elected almost exclusively by popular vote by the time the century was a third over, and the electoral votes of a state were assigned on a winner-take-all basis.
	home.pacbell.net /barbward/one1-4.htm (7955 words)

	EC fiction: Jeff Greenfield's The People's Choice
		For instance an incident in 1960, where unpledged Southern electors called on other Southerners to violate their pledge to Kennedy, was done openly, and unsuccessfully, without any evidence of concessions from Kennedy.
		At one point in the story, one of the characters describes a scene in a Charlie Chaplin movie where Chaplin on skates keeps coming perilously close to the edge of a cliff, unaware of the danger that he is in.
		Likewise, the fact of the matter is that the electoral college continues to produce reasonable results in practice, regardless of the doomsday scenarios.
	www.avagara.com /e_c/ec_peoples_choice.htm (620 words)

	CNN Transcript - TalkBack Live: Should America Get Rid of the Electoral College? - November 6, 2000
		The process differs a bit from state to state, but by and large the electors, who are residents of each of the congressional districts throughout their state, plus some statewide representatives, tend to be party activists, they sometimes are local elected officials, or state senators, or state representatives.
		About half of the states require by statute that their electors vote for the candidate who carries the popular vote, and most of those states fine or even jail an elector that does not vote for the popular choice.
		It's a way for the people to connect through the presidential electors, who instead of being no-name people that nobody knows, should be people of reputation in the community that stake their reputation on the reputation and the integrity of the candidate they are forwarding as a party.
	edition.cnn.com /TRANSCRIPTS/0011/06/tl.00.html (5540 words)

	JS Online: Electoral College or Crisis?
		There are 538 electors in all, reflecting 100 senators, 435 House members and the three electoral votes assigned to the District of Columbia.
		Constitutionally, it is the Electoral College that actually chooses the president.
		Polsby also points out that electors are partisan stalwarts chosen in most states by party leaders or the campaigns.
	www2.jsonline.com /election2000/nov00/elect02110100.asp?format=print (1007 words)

	NetworkWorld.com Community
		Section 1 goes on to lay out electors responsibilities and one thing is clear: without an amendment, they are not obligated to vote at anyone's direction; not governors, not legislatures, not even voters.
		Electors are typically pledged to vote for a particular candidate but there is no Federal penalty for dishonoring that pledge as the Supreme Court has ruled that a state matter.
		It is possible to run a slate of unpledged electors, though, and such slates have won as recently as 1960.
	www.networkworld.com /community/?q=comment/reply/5148/23889 (454 words)

	U.S. presidential election, 1960 - Article from FactBug.org - the fast Wikipedia mirror site
		Independent candidate Harry F. Byrd, a maverick segregationist Democrat, received 15 electoral votes; 14 from unpledged Democratic electors and one from an elector pledged to Nixon.
		In Alabama, the statewide primary had chosen eleven electors, five of which were pledged to vote for Kennedy, and six of whom were free to vote for anyone they chose.
		The ballot gave voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic unpledged electors.
	www.factbug.org /cgi-bin/a.cgi?a=40565 (762 words)

	Presidential Election Law - Don't Litigate - Negotiate!
		History demonstrates that this year’s electoral cliffhanger is not a freak accident but rather is merely the latest in a long series of remarkably close elections which often have ended in doubt and acrimony after considerable conflict.
		Although Republican Calvin Coolidge won by a modest landslide of popular and electoral votes, there were indications until late in the campaign that Robert M. LaFollette, running as a Progressive, might well carry enough Midwestern and Western states to throw the election into the House of Representatives.
		But while abolition of the Electoral College would prevent the embarrassment of electing another president who had failed to win more popular votes than his or her opponent, it could actually exacerbate turmoil if the national vote were close.
	jurist.law.pitt.edu /election/electionross3.htm (2512 words)

	This Day in the 1960s: 11/11/06
		Nixon would need 51 electoral votes from these states as well as a victory in California, where votes continued to be counted.
		Meanwhile, Mississippi's eight unpledged electors decided to use their votes to try and block the election of Sen. John F. Kennedy.
		The Governor asked electors of other southern states, some of whom are not bound by law to support the party nominee, 'to reappraise their positions with the full knowledge that they have it within their power to join with us and save their people from imminent social and economic chaos.'...
	thisdayinthe60s.blogspot.com /2006_11_11_thisdayinthe60s_archive.html (919 words)

	Tear down the Electoral College \| NetworkWorld.com Community
		States themselves decide how their electors will be aportioned to the EC, hence the situation where a couple of states buck the winner-take-all convention (Maine, and, oh, I forget).
		My modification is a simple one, do away with the electors and and award the EC in direct proportion to the state's popular vote.
		I believe the EC was created because the number of people in the states back then were so few, not all were highly educated and they were scattered so far apart with it taking weeks for news to spread just in the colonies, it would have taken months to elect a President.
	www.networkworld.com /community/?q=node/5148 (1888 words)

	.:DANEgerus Weblog:. Colonic Conservatism for those whose ignorance tilts Left Comments Page
		The figures that appear in standard reference works are 34,226,731 for Kennedy and 34,108,157 for Nixon, but the Kennedy total includes 324,050 votes for an unpledged slate of Democratic electors in Alabama, where Kennedy’s name was not on the ballot.
		In 1960, Jack explained, a number of Southern states, including, for example, Alabama, placed two slates of Democratic electors on the ballot, one slate that was pledged to vote for John Kennedy, and a second that was pledged to vote for Virginia senator Harry Byrd.
		If you subtract the votes for Byrd from the overall Democratic vote total to derive the number of votes actually cast for John Kennedy, you’ll discover is that the candidate who actually won the 1960 popular vote wasRichard Nixon.
	www.danegerus.com /weblog/Comments.asp?svComment=7567 (557 words)

	JFK LINK - joint071160_electioncountdown06
		New York of course, with 45 electoral votes, is the key State of all key States in the election.
		The Midwestern States that are thought to be strongly for the Republicans are: Kansas, with 8 electoral votes; North and South Dakota, each with 4 electoral votes; Iowa, with 10 electoral votes; and Indiana, with 13.
		Minnesota, with the 11 electoral votes, is generally regarded as a tight race.
	www.jfklink.com /speeches/joint/joint071160_electioncountdown06.html (8013 words)

	Letters 11/20/00 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		But now they are caught between a focused national electorate on one side and the courts on the other.
		Neither side of that equation is going to buy such an absurd argument as "manual vote counts are unreliable, machines are better." It flies in the face of logic and of laws across the country, including the law W signed in Texas.
		For example, all of Mississippi's electors were unpledged, as were six out of eleven in Alabama.
	archive.democrats.com /view.cfm?id=585 (2037 words)

	KENNEDY: A MINORITY PRESIDENT? » Outside The Beltway \| OTB
		Voters were asked to choose between Nixon and a slate of “unpledged Democrat electors.” A statewide primary had chosen five Democratic electors who were “loyalists” pledged to JFK six who were free to vote for anyone.
		In the end, the six unpledged electors voted for Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia, a leading Dixiecrat, and the other five stuck with their pledge to Kennedy.
		The remaining 176,755 votes were counted as being for the unpledged electors.
	www.outsidethebeltway.com /archives/2003/11/kennedy_a_minority_president (682 words)

	NIXON ALSO WON THE POPULAR VOTE IN 1960 [Free Republic]
		People have assumed that 1888 was the last time we had a divergence between the popular vote and the electoral vote.
		It shows that Mississippi went for unpledged electors, but it was split 3 ways with Nixon and Kennedy.
		If Mississippi's unpledged electors were included in the total, Kennedy's margin was actually 2,302 votes.
	www.freerepublic.com /forum/a3a0f602f735c.htm (632 words)

	Election 2000: The Aftermath
		Lest we forget, it is indeed the votes of the electoral college that really count in the end.
		And historically, in very close elections the electors have a tendency to take this power to heart (or the ballot as the case may be) and do odd things with their vote.
		In 1960 for example, the eight unpledged electors from Mississippi and six Kennedy electors from Alabama voted for Harry Byrd and Strom Thurmond.
	www.motherjones.com /commentary/letters/2000/12/election_aftermath.html (992 words)

	Presidential Election of 1960
		First Method: involves counting the split Alabama elector slate for both Kennedy and unpledged electors as Kennedy votes; this was, in fact, what happened.
		Second Method: involves dividing the vote for the Alabama Democratic elector slate proportionately according to its actual composition.
		Byrd was accorded the votes of 14 unpledged electors from Alabama and Mississippi, plus one vote by a Republican elector from Oklahoma.
	spot.colorado.edu /~mcguire/1960.html (96 words)

	United States presidential election, 1808 - Avoo - Ask Us A Question - In the United States presidential election of ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		Sitting Vice President George Clinton, who had served under Thomas Jefferson, was also a candidate for President, garnering six electoral votes from a wing of the Republican Party that disapproved of James Madison.
		Pinckney received all the electoral votes that he had received in 1804, and he also picked up New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and three electoral districts in North Carolina.
		The faithless electors who voted for George Clinton for President were all from New York.
	www.millvalleycaus.com /info/United_States_presidential_election,_1808 (620 words)

	Excellency and Accidency (The Nation, March 8, 1866)
		No longer do the people trust unpledged electors to choose the fittest citizens of the republic to occupy the White House and preside over the U.S. Senate.
		They dislike to incur the constant risk of a divided administration and of electors who should disappoint their expectations.
		Nevertheless the old way had advantages which cannot be depreciated and in theory it must be allowed to have been the more perfect and rational of the two.
	www.thenation.com /archive/detail/14171217 (156 words)

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