The scary prospect of ‘faithless electors’

They didn’t teach us about faithless electors in grammar school 70 years ago, but they should have.

Since then, I learned that I’m not really voting for Tweedledum or Tweedledee when I mark my ballot. I’m voting for Mr. or Ms. Nobody, a party functionary who promises to vote for my pick at the state Electoral College elections roughly five weeks later. Good system, right?

Not exactly. No power in the Constitution, which set up the Electoral College to prevent direct democracy and to entice slave states to ratify the Constitution, requires those Nobodys to vote for my pick. And while 29 states and D.C. have laws requiring electors to vote for the state winner, they have never prevented a single faithless elector from voting for the state loser, or Donald Duck for that matter.

This convoluted system has occurred 157 times since Samuel Miles became Faithless Elector No 1 in 1796. Sam voted for Tom Jefferson instead of state winner Johnny Adams. Why? Because he could. The last time this happened was just eight years ago when two electors bailed on The Donald and five deserted Hillary.

What’s the big deal one might argue since the seven faithless electors did not change the 2016 election? In a close Electoral College vote, it could take just a few faithless electors to change the presidential winner. Just a single faithless elector could prevent either candidate winning, throwing the presidential election into the House of Representatives when the new Congress is sworn in late January.

They’re still not teaching America’s future voters about faithless electors in civics classes today, if they even teach civics anymore. Maybe that’s a good thing after all. Let them enjoy their electoral innocence for a while before discovering how dysfunctional the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest democracy” really is.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn