Texas elector threatens to not vote Trump

[Arbitrage1980]

Nothing in the 12th Amendment of the Constitution (which deals with the Electoral College) or Article 2 prevents electors from voting for someone else.  Now, about half the states have laws that prevent faithless electors, but the Supreme Court has not ruled on a case involving faithless electors.  Depending on the state, it is totally possible for the elector to be censured or in some cases have his vote voided, but a criminal penalty is highly unlikely.  We are NOT a pure democracy; we are a constitutional republic.  Read the Federalist Papers to get a sense of how much disdain (and rightly so) the Founding Fathers had of the masses getting out of control.  The ignorance and anger of the masses is what brought us the Trump vs Hillary match-up, the worst in American history. 

Theoretically, it is actually possible for someone whose name was not even on the ballot for President to be elected President.  Here's how it would work.  Let's say that Trump wins the election with say 273 electoral votes to Hillary's 265.  Let's assume that Trump wins Utah's 6 electoral votes.  When the electors of each state meet at their respective state capitols in early December to officially vote, Utah's 6 electors decide to defect and cast a vote for Mitt Romney.  When the results of the electoral college are officially certified in the House after the new session is sworn in, Trump has 267, Hillary 265, Romney 6.  Under the Constitution, this means that the election will be decided by the House state delegations since no one has a majority.  This will of course NEVER happen, but if at least 26 state delegations decide to go with Romney rather than Trump (the argument being that Romney is the actual Republican, and democrats go along with it because they would much rather have Romney as President than Trump), Romney would be the President of the United States.  Of course, it goes without saying that something like this will result in the American people totally losing faith in our system, and I would expect massive civil unrest.

[Arbitrage1980]

Chris Suprun is a member of the Electoral College from Texas, a state the GOP can reliably count on to deliver votes every four years to the Republican presidential nominee.

But this year, with Donald Trump sitting atop the ticket, Suprun is warning he might not cast his electoral vote for the GOP standard-bearer. Indeed, he won’t rule out throwing his vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if Trump doesn’t moderate his demeanor.

This is particularly interesting.  The last time a faithless elector voted for somebody not from their own party was in 1972 (a Nixon elector voted for the Libertarian ticket).  But I don't believe any faithless elector has ever voted for the main opposition candidate, ever.  This is a pretty big deal... or would have been if he'd kept his mouth shut and then followed through on his flirtatious plan.

Yeah it would be unprecedented.  1960 was interesting because a number of electors from Alabama and Mississippi voted for Harry Byrd instead of JFK, but that was due to the way the elector slates were presented on the ballot rather than faithlessness.  In 1988 a West Virginia elector voted for Bentsen rather than Dukakis, and in 2004 a Minnesota elector voted for Edwards rather than Kerry.

[Arbitrage1980]

Chris Suprun is a member of the Electoral College from Texas, a state the GOP can reliably count on to deliver votes every four years to the Republican presidential nominee.

But this year, with Donald Trump sitting atop the ticket, Suprun is warning he might not cast his electoral vote for the GOP standard-bearer. Indeed, he won’t rule out throwing his vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if Trump doesn’t moderate his demeanor.

This is particularly interesting.  The last time a faithless elector voted for somebody not from their own party was in 1972 (a Nixon elector voted for the Libertarian ticket).  But I don't believe any faithless elector has ever voted for the main opposition candidate, ever.  This is a pretty big deal... or would have been if he'd kept his mouth shut and then followed through on his flirtatious plan.

Yeah it would be unprecedented.  1960 was interesting because a number of electors from Alabama and Mississippi voted for Harry Byrd instead of JFK, but that was due to the way the elector slates were presented on the ballot rather than faithlessness.  In 1988 a West Virginia elector voted for Bentsen rather than Dukakis, and in 2004 a Minnesota elector voted for Edwards rather than Kerry.

Funnily enough, in all three of Richard Nixon's elections, one of his electors voted for somebody else.  In 1960 an elector in Oklahoma voted for Harry Byrd as well, in 1968 an elector in North Carolina voted for Wallace, and then in 1972 was the aforementioned elector in Virginia who voted Libertarian.

An obscure election trivia.  Theodora Nathan, the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian ticket in 1972 (first libertarian ticket ever), was the first woman to receive an electoral vote.  The next ones were Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin.