FWIW - Faithless Elector State Laws

[Roland99]

Link to tweet

https://www.fairvote.org/faithless_elector_state_laws

Note: This page was last updated on July 7, 2020. If you have any questions or comments please contact Ashley Houghton, [e-mail].

There are 33 states (plus the District of Columbia) that require electors to vote for a pledged candidate. Most of those states (16 plus DC) nonetheless do not provide for any penalty or any mechanism to prevent the deviant vote from counting as cast. Five states provide a penalty of some sort for a deviant vote, and 14 states provide for the vote to be canceled and the elector replaced (two states do both). The constitutionality of these laws was upheld by the Supreme Court in Chiafalo v. Washington on July 6, 2020.

The Uniform Law Commission has drafted and recommended a law called the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act that provides for electors to pledge to vote for a candidate, and for them to be replaced with an alternate in the event that they do not vote as pledged. As of October 2019, that Act has been adopted by Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Washington.


State Penalty for deviant vote What happens to the vote cast?
Alabama No penalty Vote counted as cast
Alaska No penalty Vote counted as cast[
Arizona No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
California Penalty Vote counted as cast
Colorado No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Connecticut No penalty Vote counted as cast
Delaware No penalty Vote counted as cast
DC No penalty Vote counted as cast
Florida No penalty Vote counted as cast
Hawaii No penalty Vote counted as cast
Indiana No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Iowa No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Maine No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Maryland No penalty Vote counted as cast
Massachusetts No penalty Vote counted as cast
Michigan No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Minnesota No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Mississippi No penalty Vote counted as cast
Montana No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Nebraska No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Nevada No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
New Mexico Penalty Vote counted as cast
North Carolina Penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Ohio No penalty Vote counted as cast
Oklahoma Penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Oregon No penalty Vote counted as cast
South Carolina Penalty Vote counted as cast
Tennessee No penalty Vote counted as cast
Utah No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Vermont No penalty Vote counted as cast
Virginia No penalty Vote counted as cast
Washington No penalty Failure to vote as pledged cancels the vote and replaces the elector
Wisconsin No penalty Vote counted as cast
Wyoming No penalty Vote counted as cast

[brooklynite]

1. Why should we care?

What evidence does anyone have that Democratic Electors are going to shift their votes?

[Roland99]

2. that's the $64,000 question. Doesn't make sense but trump is gonna push hard

I'm not 100% up on all states but aren't ALL states' electors selected PRIOR to an election? And then the winning party's electors would meet to vote in Dec?

[TwilightZone]

3. Biden's win has made any talk of faithless electors irrelevant.

Trump isn't going to convince three dozen electors to switch. I'd be surprised if there's even one considering it.

[Roland99]

4. wouldn't be surprised if part of his new con is fundraising to push this effort

but with the cast of clowns running the show over there, they'll end making the effort look like a Jacob Wohl comedy bit

[TwilightZone]

7. He's raising money to retire debt and for his defense fund.

That's not a secret. The only people talking about faithless electors being an issue are on our side of the aisle. It's a complete non-starter.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. It looks like the only states won by Biden/Harris...

... that allow faithless electors are New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Georgia.

Georgia is the only state where I can imagine it happening, and I doubt it happens there too.

A net gain of three faithless electors was in Trump's favor in 2016, however, so it can happen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_electors_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election
As a result of the seven successfully cast faithless votes, the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost five of her pledged electors while the Republican Party nominee and then president-elect, Donald Trump, lost two.

[Dem2]

6. Trump is the whacko

I can imagine an elector who thinks he's a nut who lost the popular vote by millions and doesn't deserve to have his criminal behavior rewarded.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Doesn't look like MF45's plan to replace electors will have

much traction.