What are faithless electors?
About this video
Faithless electors are members of the Electoral College who vote for someone other than the candidate they pledged to support. Today most electors are loyal party members, but some states punish or replace faithless electors, and in Chiafalo v. Washington the Supreme Court said states may do this, creating a patchwork of rules.
You'll be able to
- define a faithless elector.
- explain why faithless electors are rare today.
- describe what the Supreme Court decided in Chiafalo v. Washington.
Key words
- Faithless elector
- An elector who votes for someone other than the candidate they promised to support.
- Pledged
- Promised in advance to vote a certain way.
- Patchwork
- A mix of different rules in different places, not one national rule.
Transcript
For a long time, electors pretty much thought they were supposed to be responsive to the candidates they were pledged to support and they occasionally weren't. But you've seen at times in history where they have been what we described, this sort of faithless electors, where they vote for somebody else out of their conscience, out of a protest vote, whatever it might be. This is a component of the electoral college that has not aged well because, you and I, we all know who the presidential candidates are.
We actually know that much better than any of the electors. In almost every state the electors names aren't even on the ballot anymore. You just see the presidential and vice presidential candidates. There are a handful of places where electors will occasionally rebel or tried to vote for someone else. Some states have put some laws in place to say you can't do that, and if you try to vote for somebody else we'll replace you. On the Supreme Court a few years ago in a case called Chiafalo versus Washington, so that's okay states, if you punish electors who tried to vote for somebody else, replacing them or fining them or whatever it might be. It's a patchwork system again, across the United States. Some states let the electors do whatever they want. Other states there's a punishment, but most of the time, these are loyal electors. They are loyal Democrats or Republicans who
want to help get that person elected into office.
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