Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin
By Dan Papia
Daily Bruin Contributor
If you’ve been loving the excitement and savoring the
mystery of not quite knowing who your next presidential leader is
going to be, the fun isn’t over yet. Even once the smoke
blows clear from the battleground of this historic race and votes
have been recounted and re-recounted, this time around
there’s going to remain an uncertainty which hasn’t
been discussed yet, but will be and soon. I’m talking about
the faithless factor.
At this writing, Al Gore is the clear popular victor and George
W. Bush the probable electoral victor with the states of Florida
and New Mexico still recounting votes.
But if Bush does become the president elect will Republicans
then finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief and more typical
California voters begin knitting their nooses? Let’s not
forget the faithless.
When watching the returns come in, most of us tend to think of
the Electoral College as being synonymous with electoral votes,
disregarding the fact that it is just that, a college ““ a
group of politically-minded but otherwise ordinary people just like
you or me who simply walk into the district convention, put their
names in nomination, and are chosen to carry a vote for the
party.
The congressional joint session isn’t going to name the
next president based on the pretty colored maps on CNN. It’s
these ordinary people (emphasis on ordinary) who cast the electoral
votes the third week in December. And virtually anyone can do it.
In fact, the Constitution requires that the members of the
Electoral College cannot be congressional big shots or hold public
office. What the Constitution doesn’t require, on the other
hand, is that they vote the way they’re supposed to.
This final precautionary measure was worked into the system so
that the presumably more provincial public at large wouldn’t
inadvertently elect Mickey Mouse. The reasoning was that, even if
some sort of massive deception was perpetrated on the general
populace, there would still be time for the members of the
Electoral College to see the light on their way to Washington.
So these representatives were granted the right to change their
minds. They can become faithless.
Two quick points on how the Electoral College is chosen before
considering the obvious implications.
First, you don’t have to be real savvy to become a
candidate, or at least to get in as an alternate. Finding favor at
a party’s campaign headquarters is often just a matter of
having nothing better to do than enthusiastically stuff envelopes.
(Theodore Kaczynski, prior to his conviction of course, could have
done so easily.)
Secondly, the selection process occurs long before the campaign
begins in earnest, at a time when nobody really cares about going
to caucuses and it’s way too early to know how important one
electoral vote may wind up being.
Clearly, however, this is a year in which a few faithless
Electoral College members could make a monumental difference. The
much ado over the number of fibers connecting chads to punched
holes on Florida ballots would be well about nothing if just a
handful of these electors simply decided to vote the other way.
But would a national representative that a political party has
entrusted with such a supreme responsibility dare betray their
state’s decision?
It happened in 1988. A Democratic electoral voter from West
Virginia cast his ballot for Vice Presidential Candidate Lloyd
Bensten instead of Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis. It also
happened in 1976 when a Washington elector who was perhaps too
ahead of his time decided Gerald Ford wasn’t the right choice
and voted instead for Ronald Reagan.
In fact, it’s happened a lot of times. In 1960 there were
as many as 15 faithless delegates. Voters in several southern
states actually believed they were casting their ballots for John
F. Kennedy, but local party officials who didn’t like
Jack’s position on civil rights instructed their electoral
members to vote for someone else.
Kennedy still squeaked by back then, but 40 years later, 15
votes could obviously change everything.
Of course, voting for a different Democrat is a far cry from
switching a Democrat electoral vote to Republican, or vice versa.
But the point is that the true and final decision concerning the
fate of the nation can be changed by a very small number of very
ordinary people.
What if a handful of Republican Electoral College members are
swayed by the argument that Gore won the popular vote? After all,
the next six weeks are going to see a lot of critics blasting the
Electoral College system. What if a few are convinced?
What if it were you? Say you had some time to spare and had
decided to serve as an electoral delegate just for the exposure and
experience. What if you then woke up on Nov. 8 and realized that
you could now change history?
Good plot for a movie? I thought so too. But it’s also
very possible that things could play out this way in real life. In
fact, since both Republicans and Democrats will become ever mindful
of the faithless factor as soon as the final call is made,
here’s something that seems almost pre-destined: new
scandals. If there’s anything left to be exposed of
Watergate/Contra/Lewinsky proportions (sorry, Monica, no pun
intended), the call is going to be out to spread the news.
Despite all this talk about the faithless, however, maybe you
still have enough faith in the system that you don’t think
the results of a presidential election could ever be reversed after
the polls have been closed and the ballots counted ““ never in
America. In that case, one final point: that’s happened
too.
It didn’t have as much to do with the Electoral College as
it did with election returns in conveniently crucial states being
contested (something that today sounds all too familiar). In 1876,
the Rutherford B. Hayes camp, using resistance to reconstruction in
the South as a bargaining chip, managed to make a case that the
returns were in error. Civil rights again.
It wasn’t settled with a second vote but with a special
congressional committee appointed to sort things out. Long story
short, the electoral losers got their man in office.
Now that’s a movie. Except that in four weeks you’ll
probably know it by heart already. Meanwhile, the real life that
happens next might ““ just possibly ““ prove stranger
still.