It happens with enough frequency that it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it continues to highlight a flaw in the electoral college system.
Remember in early November when we learned that the final tally of votes led to a Bush 286, Kerry 252 split? Well, that’s not how history will record it because that’s not exactly how the electoral college voted yesterday.
An unknown Minnesota Democrat earned a footnote in history Monday by casting one of the state’s 10 Electoral College votes for John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential running mate for John Kerry.
The Edwards vote gives Minnesota its first “faithless elector,” the dubious name for Electoral College members who snub the candidate who won the state’s popular vote in the general election. Kerry, who beat President Bush in Minnesota but lost overall, wound up with nine of the state’s electoral votes.
So, was this some kind of protest from a die-hard Edwards fan? Maybe not.
No one claimed credit for the Edwards vote. Several electors said they suspected that someone unconsciously mixed up the two Johns on the ticket rather than purposefully made a political statement.
“If it was meant to be a protest-type vote I would be up front and say, ‘This is how I voted,’ ” elector Frank Simon of Chaska said. “It doesn’t seem like anyone is coming forth to say that.”
Added elector Michael Meuers of Bemidji: “I’m certainly glad that the Electoral College is not separated by one vote.”
Yeah, me too.
Still, this is hardly a rare phenomenon.
In 1976, a GOP elector from Washington state cast his electoral college vote for Reagan instead of Ford.
In 1988, a Dem elector from West Virginia switched the candidates and cast her vote for Lloyd Bensten for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president.
In 2000, an elector for Al Gore in DC abstained from voting to protest the lack of congressional representation for taxpayers in the District of Columbia.
The difference is, in each of those instances, we knew who the faithless elector was and why he or she was voting that way. This may be the first time that an elector ignored his or her obligation to vote for the party’s slate by accident. Indeed, the fact that all 10 electoral votes for VP also went to Edwards suggests an error really was made.
The ballots aren’t signed, so we may never know which of the 10 backed Edwards, unless someone comes forward to admit it.
Oh, and for those who were following it, Richie Robb, a Republican elector from West Virginia, had suggested that he might break ranks and withhold his vote in protest. But yesterday, Robb joined the rest of the state’s GOP electors and backed Bush.