electoral college question: do electors have to vote?

Question

for the candidate who won the most votes in the state? or do they have the power in some states to independently decide.

Answer 1

It depends on the state. Some states have laws that dictate that the elector is required to vote for the candidates who won the state. Periodically, there will be a nice law journal article on the constitutionality of such laws, but there has never been a court decision on the enforceability of such statutes. In other states, the electors are theoretically free to vote for the persons of their choice.

As noted in previous answers, the electors are nominated by the political parties. Typically, these electors are individuals with a long record of involvement in party activities. Not too surprising, there is no history of defections from the candidates who won the majority of the electoral votes. There are sometimes one or two electors pledged to a candidate who did not get the majority of the electoral votes who decide to cast a protest vote.

Answer 2

Electors are not required to vote for the party that selected him or her.

Basically, in a presidential election, the voters are selecting which party gets to determine the electors for that state. These electors are usually party faithfuls, so you can pretty much count on these electors casting votes according to party lines. Nevertheless, there is no legal penalty if an elector were to vote contrary to expectations.

Answer 3

In some states they can vote for whoever they choose. The parties will make sure that they only nominate loyal people as electors, so this usually isn't a problem, but it has happened. It's called "faithless elector" and there have been several of them in the last 100 years or so.

Answer 4

The delegates for each party are chosen by the party in the state in question, but in no way are forced to vote for the candidate from their (the winning) party. It has come to be that delegates are simply loyal party members, rewarded with the honor of being a delegate, so undoubtedly they will toe the line!

As a matter of fact, our Founding Fathers put the system into place trying to put the power in the delegates hands to make an independent decision, because they balked at the thought of having the power directly in the hands of the people to elect the highest office in the country.

Answer 5

While electors are generally party faithfuls and will vote as directed there have been protests over the last 100 years that went against the vote.

Answer 6

They are supposed to vote as the majority of the state voters did but there have been a few mavericks along the way.