If The Supreme Court Lets The Electoral College Vote However It Wants, Will Chaos Ensue?
JUN. 16, 2020, AT 7:00 AM
If The Supreme Court Lets The Electoral College Vote However It Wants, Will Chaos Ensue?
Probably not.
By Josh Putnam
Last month the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging state laws that bind Electoral College electors to vote for the presidential candidate they are selected to support. The case was brought in response to four 2016 electors — three from Washington and one from Colorado — who tried to vote against their state’s popular vote winner, and, in the case of the Washington electors, faced fines for having broken their pledges.
These so-called “faithless electors” have long been a feature of American presidential elections, but it’s possible that the Supreme Court could shake up the Electoral College system, striking down state laws that try to guarantee electors’ votes by replacing or punishing those who don’t vote as they promised to. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the overall lack of enforcement of electors’ pledge to vote for the winner of their state troubled her, saying, “I made a promise to do something, but that promise is unenforceable.” But Justice Samuel Alito said that overturning the state laws could “lead to chaos where the popular vote is close.”
There is some truth to that. In a system where a close national popular vote can produce a close-but-different Electoral College outcome, a handful of electors refusing to uphold their pledges could indeed sow chaos. There is already controversy surrounding the Electoral College and its election of George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 — neither won the popular vote. Adding in a few faithless electors who could flip the outcome of the election might pose a significant threat to the Electoral College’s continued legitimacy. Yet, the history of presidential elections is not exactly littered with faithless electors.
In fact, during the presidential elections of the 20th century just 15 electors broke their pledge and voted for someone other than their party’s nominee.1 That means, on average, there was less than one faithless elector per election during this period, and none of them altered the course of any one election. This trend continued into the 21st century as well, with just one faithless elector in the 2000 presidential election and one in 2004; however, in the 2016 presidential election, there was a sharp uptick. Ten electors from six different states attempted to break ranks.2 That’s still not enough to have changed the outcome of the 2016 election, but it is nonetheless a significant jump in the number of defections.
More:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-the-supreme-court-lets-the-electoral-college-vote-however-it-wants-will-chaos-ensue/
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