Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 31 October 2024
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
              A single faithless elector could elect the president
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift
 
WASHINGTON – The election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is shaping up to be the closest Electoral College contest since the Hayes/Tilden race of 1876 (albeit contested) was decided 185 to 184. It could happen again. It could happen this year, and not necessarily as expected by a single elector from Nebraska.
              Only Nebraska and Maine allocate electors by congressional district rather than the winner-take-all standard elsewhere in the country. This is particularly relevant in the district encompassing Omaha, Nebraska known as the Blue Dot because it occasionally selects a Democratic elector in this deep red state.
              If current polling proves accurate, Harris will win the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania while Trump takes North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona, leaving the Blue Dot to decide the issue. If that Nebraska district votes for Harris, she will win 270-268, but if it goes for Trump the election will be tied 269-269 and sent to the House of Representatives where states, not members, will vote. And since there are more Republican-controlled states than Democratic states, Trump would win.
              However, what appears not to have been considered is a completely different scenario, one decided by one or more faithless electors. Only 17 states have enacted laws to void votes cast by electors who do not reflect the outcome of the popular election in the state. As a result, the vast majority of the 538 electors (one apportioned for each U.S. House and Senate seat plus three for Washington, D.C.) are free to vote as they choose.
              This is a rare occurrence because each state’s electors are selected either by direct popular vote or by the winning party. Even so, faithless electors have voted other than as directed or pledged 165 times (90 for president; 75 for vice president). These instances, including 15 since World War II, have almost always been for third-party candidates or not cast at all.
Further, U.S. law dictates that “Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote against any candidate . . . or whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure . . . shall be fined or imprisoned.”
              Why, then, would such a rare occurrence be of concern in 2024? Because the rules make it possible, the country is deeply divided, and the normal restraints are being ignored or discarded.
              This leaves several open avenues. First, an elector may become faithless by choice. Second, an elector may fall prey to family or social pressure. Third, in a surreptitious scenario, an elector could, in espionage parlance, be a sleeper only feigning allegiance to a party or candidate. And finally, nefariously and illegally, an elector could be bribed, knowing that the vote cast would be decisive in electing a president who would issue a pardon upon entering office.
So, in the end, all eyes may be on Nebraska’s Blue Dot elector when through conscious, coercion, or other means any one of several hundred electors could prove to be the single individual who determines the outcome of the 2024 election. As we used to say in combat, “Assume the possible.”
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND