Hubbry Logo
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential electionFaithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential electionMain
Open search
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election
Community hub
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election
Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia

2016 U.S. presidential election
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Third parties
Related races
← 2012 2016 2020 →
The namesake of the Hamilton Electors, Alexander Hamilton

In the 2016 United States presidential election, ten members of the Electoral College voted or attempted to vote for a candidate different from the ones to whom they were pledged.[1] Three of these votes were invalidated under the faithless elector laws of their respective states, and the elector either subsequently voted for the pledged candidate or was replaced by someone who did.[2][3][4] Although there had been a combined total of 155 instances of individual electors voting faithlessly prior to 2016 in over two centuries of previous US presidential elections, 2016 was the first election in over a hundred years in which multiple electors worked to alter the result of the election.[1]

As a result of the seven successfully cast faithless votes, the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost five of her pledged electors while the Republican Party nominee and then president-elect, Donald Trump, lost two. Three of the faithless electors voted for Colin Powell while John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one vote. The defections fell well short of the number needed to change the result of the election; only two of the seven defected from the winner, whereas 37 were needed to defect in order to force a contingent election in Congress (a tally of less than 270).[5]

The faithless electors who opposed Donald Trump were part of a movement dubbed the "Hamilton Electors" co-founded by Micheal Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington. The movement attempted to find 37 Republican electors willing to vote for a different Republican in an effort to deny Donald Trump a majority in the Electoral College and force a contingent election in the House of Representatives. The electors advocated for voting their conscience to prevent the election of someone they viewed as unfit for the presidency as prescribed by Alexander Hamilton in No. 68 of The Federalist Papers.[6][7] Despite their stated intentions to defeat Donald Trump, these electors cast their votes for persons other than the candidate to whom they were pledged, Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton.[8] By the time they switched their votes away from Trump's opponent, it was numerically impossible to achieve their stated goal as all but 30 of the Trump-pledged electoral votes had already been cast (in different states in the same or later time zones), with 37 votes needed to switch to deny Trump an outright victory in the Electoral College. Electors were subjected to public pressure, including threats of death if they remained faithful to voting for Trump.[9] The Washington elector who voted for Spotted Eagle did so in protest of Clinton's support for the Dakota Access Pipeline; the vote made Spotted Eagle the first Native American to ever receive an Electoral College vote for president, as well as one of the first of three women, along with Clinton and Tonie Nathan in 1972, to receive one.[10]

The seven validated faithless votes for president were the most to defect from presidential candidates who were still alive in electoral college history, surpassing the six electors who defected from James Madison in the 1808 election.[11] This number of defections has been exceeded only once: in 1872, a record 63 of 66 electors who were originally pledged to losing candidate Horace Greeley cast their votes for someone else (Greeley had died between election day and the meeting of the Electoral College). The six faithless vice-presidential votes in 2016 are short of the record for that office, without considering whether the vice-presidential candidates were still living, as multiple previous elections have had more than six faithless vice-presidential votes; in 1836, faithless electors moved the vice-presidential decision to the US Senate, though this did not affect the outcome.[12]

Background

[edit]
The electors themselves are named on the presidential ballots of only eight states.[13]
  In the indicated states, laws exist which either impose a fine or imprisonment on an elector who fails to vote according to the state-specified rules, force the elector to vote for the candidate they pledged to vote for, or disqualify the elector and provide a replacement.[14]

In the unique system of presidential elections of the United States, the president is not determined directly by the popular vote of the national electorate, but indirectly through the mechanism of the Electoral College determined by cumulative wins of the popular votes of state electorates. In this system of representative democracy, a presidential candidate is deemed to have won a presidential race if that candidate wins a simple majority of the electoral college vote.

Electors are selected on a state-by-state basis: in 48 states all electors are pledged to the winner of the statewide popular vote; in Maine and Nebraska the winner of each congressional district receives one elector and the statewide winner receives two. The electors, once selected, are free under federal law to vote for a candidate other than the one for whom they were pledged. However, at the time of the election, thirty-one states and the District of Columbia had laws requiring their electors to vote for their pledged candidate,[15] and courts had issued conflicting opinions regarding the constitutionality of those laws. The supremacy clause established by the Constitution of the United States provides that state courts are bound by federal law and the Constitution in the event that state law were to contradict them.

Only four times in American history (1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016) has a presidential candidate lost the popular vote but achieved the Electoral College majority, thereby assuming the presidency; in the last three such cases, no candidate polled an absolute majority of the popular vote.

In the event that no one receives a majority of the Electoral College vote, the selection of the president is made by the House of Representatives under certain constitutional guidelines. In 1824 the candidate with the highest popular vote (Andrew Jackson) also had the most electoral votes but, crucially, did not have a majority in the Electoral College. Despite John Quincy Adams having lost the popular vote and having received fewer electoral votes than Andrew Jackson, the House of Representatives chose Adams to become President.

Number of intended faithless electors

[edit]

In the 2016 election cycle, the threshold of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency and vice presidency outright could have been thwarted by garnering a minimum of at least 12 percent of all Republican electors to become faithless, that is, 37 of 306 Republican electors. However, garnering the requisite number of faithless electors was thought to be extremely unlikely,[16][17] as electors tend to be dignitaries with long histories in their respective party, and have historically voted for their pledged candidate over 99% of the time.[18]

On November 16, 2016, journalist Bill Lichtenstein published an article in the Huffington Post, detailing the plans by presidential elector Micheal Baca to seek to derail Trump's ascent to the presidency by convincing Democratic and Republican presidential electors to vote for a more moderate candidate on December 19, 2016, when the Electoral College voted.[19] Lichtenstein's article soon went viral, and on December 5, 2016, several members of the electoral college, seven from the Democratic Party[20] and one from the Republican Party,[21] publicly stated their intention to vote for a candidate other than the pledged nominees at the Electoral College vote on December 19, 2016.

Texas Republican elector Christopher Suprun publicly pledged to not cast his vote for Donald Trump as allowed by Texas state law.[22] Suprun indicated that he had also been in confidential contact with several Republican electors who planned to vote faithlessly, stating that they would be "discussing names specifically and see who meets the [fitness for president] test that we could all get behind."[23] By December 5, 2016, two Republican electoral college members who publicly stated their intention to not vote for Trump had resigned. Texas Republican elector Art Sisneros willingly resigned in November rather than vote for Trump.[24][25] Georgia Republican elector Baoky Vu resigned in August in the face of reaction to his public statement that he would not vote for Trump.[26] Both Sisneros and Vu served in states that lacked any laws preventing electors from faithlessness.[27]

Although it is difficult to ascertain how many more electors, especially Republican electors, considered becoming faithless and voting for a Republican other than Trump, it was reported that at least an additional 20 Republican electors had already accepted free-of-charge anonymous legal counsel and support provided for Republican faithless electors to assist them in voting against Trump.[28][29][30][31][32][33]

The Republican National Committee mounted an expansive whip operation to ensure that all those electors selected to vote for the Republican nominee indeed did so.[34] On December 14, multiple Republican members of the electoral college stated under condition of anonymity that they were being coerced with "threats of political reprisal," adding "that the Donald Trump campaign is putting pressure on Republican electors to vote for him based on ... future political outcomes based on whether they vote for Donald Trump or not."[35][36]

Public outreach to electors

[edit]

On December 14, the Unite For America campaign released a video[37] published on YouTube and other media addressed directly to Republican electors urging that each of them individually, plus 36 of their colleagues (at least 37 Republican electors in total), vote for a Republican other than Donald Trump for president. The video featured numerous public figures,[38] including Debra Messing, Martin Sheen, and Bob Odenkirk, urging Republican electors to prevent a Trump presidency, expressing several times the message: "I'm not asking you to vote for Hillary Clinton". In electing an alternative Republican, the featured speakers ask the elector to become an "American hero" by using the elector's constitutional "authority" to give "service and patriotism to the American people" through a vote of "conscience."[37]

Daniel Brezenoff's anti-Trump Change.org petition became the largest in that organization's history with nearly five million signatures, and on December 14, full-page ads funded by Brezenoff's related GoFundMe campaign ran in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Austin American-Statesman, The Salt Lake Tribune, and the Tampa Bay Times. Full-page ads ran the next day, December 15, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Wisconsin State Journal.[39]

On December 11, Democratic US Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut wrote on Twitter that Trump is "completely unhinged" and "the Electoral College must do what it was designed for."[40] Himes said he made the plea to the Electoral College because Trump refused to say that the Russians hacked Democrats during the election.[41]

[edit]
Lawrence Lessig

On December 6, 2016, the Hamilton Electors' website was established to advocate the election of an alternative Republican as the next president of the United States. Lawrence Lessig, a prominent Harvard University law professor (and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination himself), announced that he was "teaming with a California-based law firm to offer legal support for any members of the Electoral College seeking to oppose President-elect Donald Trump." Lessig said the counsel and support (namely Laurence Tribe, who has argued before the Supreme Court 36 times)[42] would be provided anonymously.[43] Litigation is a component of Lessig's Equal Citizens movement.

Lessig and Boston attorney R. J. Lyman created a nonprofit organization called Electors Trust to provide potential faithless electors with pro bono legal assistance.[44][29][45]

Litigation prior to the vote

[edit]

In states with laws against faithlessness, depending on the particular state voting faithlessly despite the laws may incur anything from no prescribed punishment, to simple removal and replacement of the intended faithless elector, to fines and the potential imprisonment of the elector. Democratic electors filed lawsuits in Colorado, Washington, and California, but federal judges declined to issue injunctions blocking these laws, and there was insufficient time to appeal to the Supreme Court before the electoral college vote.[46] However, in Baca v. Hickenlooper a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit declared in a footnote that any attempt to remove electors "after voting has begun" would be "unlikely in light of the text of the Twelfth Amendment."[47]

While at the time of the election the constitutionality of faithless electors had not yet been addressed by the Supreme Court, in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952) the court had ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate in order to be certified as electors, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge. Nevertheless, the court had also written:[48]

However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, § 1, to vote as he may choose [emphasis added] in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional.

In his dissent, Justice Robert H. Jackson, joined by Justice William O. Douglas, wrote:

No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices.

Recorded faithless electors

[edit]

Validated

[edit]
State Party Pledged to Presidential vote Vice presidential vote Name of Elector References
Hawaii Clinton/Kaine Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) David Mulinix [49]
Texas Trump/Pence John Kasich (R-OH) Carly Fiorina (R-VA) Christopher Suprun [50][51][52]
Trump/Pence Ron Paul (L-TX)[53] Mike Pence (R-IN) Bill Greene
Washington Clinton/Kaine Colin Powell (R-VA)[a] Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Levi Guerra [57][48][58][59]
Clinton/Kaine Colin Powell (R-VA) Susan Collins (R-ME) Esther John
Clinton/Kaine Colin Powell (R-VA) Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Peter Bret Chiafalo
Clinton/Kaine Faith Spotted Eagle (D-SD) Winona LaDuke (G-MN) Robert Satiacum Jr.

Invalidated

[edit]
State Party Pledged to Presidential vote Vice presidential vote Name of Elector Outcome References
Maine Clinton/Kaine Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Tim Kaine (D-VA) David Bright Changed vote to Clinton [60]
Minnesota Clinton/Kaine Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) Muhammad Abdurrahman Replaced by alternate elector [60][61]
Colorado Clinton/Kaine John Kasich (R-OH) barred from voting Micheal Baca Replaced by alternate elector [62][63]

Recipients of votes

[edit]
President
Vice President
[edit]

The four faithless electors from Washington were each fined $1,000 for breaking their pledge.[64] Three of the electors appealed the fines, which were upheld by the Washington Supreme Court in May 2019 by an 8–1 vote.[65][66] On October 7, 2019, the electors unsuccessfully appealed their case, Chiafalo v. Washington, to the U.S. Supreme Court.[67][68]

In Colorado, three of the electors filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The case, Baca v. Colorado Department of State, was dismissed by Judge Wiley Young Daniel on April 10, 2018. The electors filed an appeal with the 10th Circuit and oral arguments were held on January 24, 2019.[69] On August 20, 2019, a three-judge panel ruled 2–1 in favor of the electors.[63][69][70] On October 16, 2019, Colorado appealed the 10th Circuit's decision to the Supreme Court.[71][72]

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both the Washington and Colorado cases in January 2020; while initially consolidated, Justice Sotomayor's recusal in the Colorado case due to a prior relationship with one of the respondents kept the cases separate.[73][74] Oral arguments in both cases had been scheduled for April, but were subsequently postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then announced that oral arguments would be held via phone, which occurred on May 13, 2020. On July 6, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states may require an elector to vote for the candidate to whom they had pledged, and a fine imposed for an elector for breaching a pledge is not unlawful.[75]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Faithless electors in the were the seven members of the who cast ballots for candidates other than those pledged under their states' popular vote outcomes, establishing a record for the most such defections in a single election. These votes were cast on December 19, 2016, following widespread but unsuccessful efforts to induce Republican electors to withhold support from in order to deny him an majority. Of the seven faithless electors, five were pledged to —four from Washington who voted for (three votes) and (one vote) for president, and one from who selected —while two pledged to Trump in voted for and , respectively. Separate deviations occurred for vice-presidential votes, including one in for and others in Washington and for alternatives like . Although three intended faithless votes were invalidated or electors replaced prior to casting ballots, the recorded defections reduced Trump's presidential total from 306 pledged to 304 and Clinton's from 232 to 227, without altering the election's result as Trump retained a decisive majority of 270 or more. The episode underscored longstanding tensions between elector discretion and state mandates, fueling litigation that reached the in Chiafalo v. Washington, which later upheld penalties for faithless voting but did not retroactively affect the 2016 tally. Proponents of the defections framed them as exercises of constitutional independence envisioned by the framers, yet empirical outcomes across U.S. history demonstrate that faithless votes have never overturned an election, reflecting both legal constraints and practical loyalty among electors.

Constitutional and Historical Foundations

Electoral College Framework and Elector Obligations

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. establishes the by directing that "ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." This provision vests state legislatures with plenary authority over the appointment of electors, without specifying qualifications or voting instructions, thereby embedding federalist principles that prioritize state sovereignty in mediating national elections. The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, refines the process by requiring electors to cast separate ballots for president and while meeting in their respective states, but imposes no federal obligation on how electors must align their votes with state outcomes. Consequently, the leaves elector fidelity to state determination, absent any national mandate for strict adherence to party pledges or popular vote results. The framers intended electors to serve as a deliberative buffer against direct popular pressures or external influences, as articulated by in , which portrays the as an "intermediate body of electors" selected for their discernment to prevent "tumult and disorder" from cabals, foreign powers, or momentary passions. This design aimed to balance republican representation with safeguards against unqualified candidates, allowing electors temporary authority to exercise independent judgment within their state's allocation. Over subsequent centuries, however, political norms evolved to emphasize alignment with state popular mandates, with state legislatures in a majority of jurisdictions—33 by 2016—enacting statutes or requiring pledges that obligate electors to vote for the candidate prevailing in the state's popular vote, often backed by fines or replacement provisions. These state-level mechanisms reflect a practical deference to voter intent at the state level, though they remain unenforceable under federal constitutional constraints until affirmed by later judicial rulings. Empirical evidence highlights the rarity of deviations from these expectations: prior to 2016, fewer than 100 electors out of more than 23,000 total votes cast since had acted faithlessly—voting contrary to their pledge or abstaining—and none such instance has ever altered a presidential election's outcome. This track record underscores the robustness of normative and statutory pressures enforcing elector adherence, with faithless actions typically marginal and inconsequential to the federalist structure's operation.

Historical Precedents of Faithless Electors

Faithless electors have appeared infrequently in U.S. presidential elections since , with records documenting 167 such instances out of more than total electoral votes cast, a rate below 1 percent. These defections have never changed the presidential winner, though one case affected the vice presidential outcome. Empirical data from official election records show that faithless votes typically stem from intra-party disputes or protests within slates aligned with losing candidates, rather than coordinated efforts by winning-side electors to subvert certified results. In the early republic, examples included the 1808 election, where six of New York's 19 electors, pledged to , voted instead for George Clinton amid Democratic-Republican factionalism favoring Clinton's gubernatorial influence. The 1836 election saw 23 Virginia electors back for president but withhold votes from vice presidential nominee due to objections over Johnson's personal conduct, such as his involvement in a ; this denied Johnson an majority, forcing a contingent election where he prevailed. These cases arose from minority dissent within prevailing party coalitions, not challenges to the popular mandate. Twentieth-century faithless electors remained rare and inconsequential, with single instances in elections like , when a elector pledged to voted for of the ticket, and , when an elector for abstained entirely. In both, the states' electoral votes aligned with losing presidential candidates, reflecting post-election dissatisfaction rather than defection from a victor. Verifiable patterns across elections confirm that over 90 percent of faithless votes originate from defeated slates, as corroborated by archival tallies, underscoring the system's resilience to isolated deviations without systemic incentives for winner-side betrayal.

2016 Election Context

In the 2016 United States presidential election held on November 8, Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence received 304 electoral votes, securing victory over Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, who received 227 electoral votes, out of a total of 538 electors required to reach a majority of 270. This outcome followed Trump's wins in 30 states, including narrow margins in the Rust Belt swing states of Michigan (by 10,704 votes), Pennsylvania (by 44,292 votes), and Wisconsin (by 22,748 votes), which had supported Democratic candidates in the prior six presidential elections. These victories provided the electoral margin, as Trump prevailed in states totaling 306 pledged electors before adjustments for faithless voting. Clinton, however, won the national popular vote with 65,853,514 votes (48.2 percent) compared to Trump's 62,984,828 votes (46.1 percent), a margin of approximately 2.87 million votes, while other candidates garnered the remaining 7.0 percent. The certified popular vote totals, finalized by the , underscored the divergence between the popular and electoral outcomes inherent to the constitutional framework. State officials certified their election results and slates of electors by the federal safe harbor deadline of , 2016, ensuring conclusive determination of pledged electors six days prior to the meetings on December 19. This certification process established the official baseline for elector obligations, against which subsequent deviations by electors were measured.

State Laws on Elector Pledges and Penalties

As of the 2016 presidential election, 33 states and the District of Columbia had enacted statutes requiring presidential electors to vote consistent with their state's popular vote outcome, with enforcement mechanisms including civil fines, criminal penalties such as misdemeanors, or provisions for vote invalidation or elector replacement. These laws typically mandated a pledge of from electors upon selection, rooted in state efforts to align votes with voter intent and deter deviations that could undermine election stability. The remaining 17 states lacked such binding requirements, relying instead on party pledges or informal norms, though historical data showed near-universal compliance even there due to partisan loyalty and the low incidence of voting overall. Empirical evidence prior to 2016 indicated high effectiveness of these mechanisms in maintaining elector fidelity: across more than 20,000 electors appointed since the Electoral College's inception, only about 157 had voted faithlessly, with none altering a outcome, suggesting that legal deterrents—combined with political pressures—successfully minimized disruptions despite the Constitution's silence on binding electors. Many such laws emerged or were strengthened in the mid- to late , often following closely contested elections like those in 1960 and 1968, as states sought to codify practices ensuring electors functioned as delegates rather than independent actors. Enforcement varied by state. Washington's statute imposed a $1,000 fine and classified faithless voting as a , directly penalizing deviations from the pledged candidate. Colorado's law authorized the replacement of any elector who refused to affirm their pledge or attempted a faithless vote, allowing swift substitution to preserve the intended ballot. In contrast, states like had no statutory penalties, depending on non-binding pledges and , which historically yielded compliance but permitted rare exceptions without legal recourse. Other jurisdictions employed hybrid approaches, such as North Carolina's provision for vote nullification alongside fines up to $500 and felony charges, reflecting a spectrum of deterrence strategies calibrated to state priorities for electoral predictability.

Recruitment and Advocacy Efforts

Public Campaigns Against Trump

The Hamilton Electors, a group of Electoral College members and advocates, launched an initiative in mid-November 2016 to persuade at least 37 Republican electors to defect from Donald Trump, aiming to deny him the 270 electoral votes needed for victory and trigger a contingent election in the House of Representatives. The effort invoked Alexander Hamilton's Federalist No. 68, arguing that electors should act as a check against an unqualified candidate, citing concerns over Trump's temperament and unverified claims of Russian election interference as reported by U.S. intelligence agencies, though the direct causal impact on the vote outcome remained contested and unproven at the time. Public advocacy intensified in December 2016 through celebrity-led appeals, including a widely circulated video released on December 14 featuring actors , , and musician , among others, directly imploring Republican electors to "vote your conscience" and reject Trump in favor of alternatives like Governor . The video, produced by anti-Trump activists, garnered millions of views and was part of broader media pressure framing Trump's as illegitimate due to popular vote disparities and foreign meddling allegations. Organizers ran targeted advertising campaigns, including a $500,000 ad buy announced on December 17 by a coalition of outside groups, focusing on Republican electors in key states to amplify calls for . Full-page newspaper ads appeared in cities such as , Austin, , and starting December 14, urging electors to prioritize national interest over party loyalty. Online petitions circulated widely, with one launched in late November amassing signatures imploring electors to withhold votes from Trump, contributing to an estimated flood of over 10,000 direct contacts to electors via calls, emails, and letters, as reported by campaign participants amid the heightened scrutiny. These campaigns primarily targeted Republican electors in states Trump narrowly carried, emphasizing constitutional duty over pledged votes, though they elicited counter-pressure including pro-Trump inundations and threats against potential defectors, underscoring the polarized response without altering the Electoral College outcome.

Targeting of Democratic Electors

The Hamilton Electors, a group formed by Democratic electors pledged to , coordinated efforts to recruit faithless votes primarily from fellow Clinton-pledged electors in states such as and Washington, with the explicit goal of denying an Electoral College majority by promoting alternative Republican candidates like Ohio Governor or independent . Organizers, including elector Micheal Baca and Washington elector P. Bret Chiafalo—both Democrats—claimed a "moral duty" to reject the certified results of their states' popular votes for , arguing that electors should exercise independent judgment to avert perceived threats from Trump's candidacy, despite empirical evidence of his victories in key battleground states under established electoral rules. This approach reflected partisan motivations rooted in opposition to Trump, as the group's core members—many former supporters of —sought to undermine the Electoral College system that had delivered Trump 306 votes to 's 232, even as held a national popular vote margin of approximately 2.87 million. At least nine Democratic electors participated in the Hamilton Electors initiative, with recruitment focusing on Clinton slates where state laws permitted or lacked penalties for defections, leading to planned faithless actions comprising over 80% of documented intended deviations—such as four Washington electors initially set to vote for and three in for Kasich—compared to minimal organized outreach to Trump-pledged electors. In contrast, efforts to sway Republican electors yielded only one public commitment to defect (from Texas elector Chris Suprun), with two others opting for resignation rather than faithless voting, underscoring the asymmetrical targeting driven by Democratic-led advocacy rather than balanced bipartisan recruitment. Organizers acknowledged approaching a small cadre of Democratic peers, including five in per one participant's account, but public records indicate no comparable scale of contacts to the 306 Trump electors, highlighting a strategic emphasis on subverting loser slates to force a in the . This focus on Democratic electors, despite the constitutional expectation of fidelity to state outcomes, was justified by proponents as fulfilling Alexander Hamilton's vision in of electors as safeguards against unfit leaders, though critics noted the selective application ignored Trump's certified state wins and risked eroding electoral legitimacy without altering the popular mandate in affected blue states. The partisan tilt was evident in the absence of reciprocal Republican-led campaigns against , with Democratic organizers admitting long-term aims to discredit and reform the , a system that had favored GOP outcomes in prior cycles. ![Lawrence Lessig, advocate for elector independence](./assets/Lessig_croppedcropped , a and founder of Equal Citizens, advised Democratic electors in that Article II of the U.S. granted them discretion to vote independently of their state's popular vote winner, positioning electors as a deliberative body unbound by pledges. This emphasized the original of the Electoral College as a check against direct popular choice, though it overlooked the clause assigning states plenary authority to appoint electors in a manner determined by their legislatures, effectively subordinating elector autonomy to state sovereignty. The Electors Trust, a network of attorneys, provided confidential legal guidance to dozens of electors contemplating votes, focusing on the enforceability of party pledges and potential personal liabilities under state statutes. These consultations aimed to reassure participants that deviations would withstand scrutiny, drawing on historical precedents where votes faced no federal reversal. Equal Citizens supplemented this with analyses questioning pledge validity, asserting that pre-vote commitments lacked constitutional force absent explicit state penalties enforced prior to casting ballots. Pre-vote legal memoranda circulated by advocates, including interpretations from Lessig-aligned experts, maintained that states lacked authority to retroactively invalidate nonconforming votes, citing the absence of uniform federal oversight and the finality of elector submissions to . Such positions presumed elector votes as insulated exercises of individual judgment, yet they were premised on a contested reading of Article II that diminished state legislative control—a framework later rejected in judicial rulings affirming states' capacity to prescribe and enforce elector conduct. This advisory framework encouraged defections by minimizing perceived risks, despite empirical rarity of successful faithless impacts across U.S. history.

Electoral College Voting on December 19, 2016

Intended Faithless Actions

The Hamilton Electors, a bipartisan but predominantly Democratic group of presidential electors and advocates, emerged in late November 2016 to coordinate efforts aimed at persuading Republican electors to defect from , with the explicit goal of denying him the 270 electoral votes required for victory and potentially forcing a in the . The group's strategy centered on recruiting at least 37 defections from Trump's 306 pledged electors, proposing alternatives such as former Governor or former Governor , while some Democratic members considered abstaining from or deviating from to facilitate a unified non-Trump, non-Clinton outcome. Their website launched on December 6, 2016, framing the effort as a return to the 's deliberative intent as described by in , though this interpretation emphasized independent judgment over state popular mandates. Initially involving about 10 electors—nine pledged to and one to Trump—the Hamilton Electors conducted outreach through private calls, emails, and public advertisements to build support, with Harvard professor Larry Lessig providing legal counsel to shield participants from potential state penalties. Only one Republican elector, Christopher Suprun of , publicly pledged to defect prior to the vote, citing moral concerns over Trump's fitness; two others expressed reservations but indicated plans to resign rather than vote faithlessly. Pre-vote assessments, including surveys by the and whip counts, identified no additional Trump electors willing to flip, underscoring the limited concrete commitments despite broader media speculation and advocacy hopes for 20 or more defections fueled by anti-Trump sentiment. These intentions reflected an overestimation of elector , as intensive pressure campaigns— including thousands of emails, calls, and even threats directed at both pro- and anti-defection sides—failed to yield widespread pledges, with most electors citing legal obligations, party loyalty, and voter mandates as barriers. The gap between anticipated and realized support highlighted the rarity of sustained defection planning, as state pledge requirements and penalties in 29 states plus D.C. deterred all but a committed few, per contemporaneous reporting on elector communications.

Actual Faithless Votes Cast

On December 19, 2016, seven presidential electors cast votes for candidates other than those to whom they were pledged, marking the highest number of such deviations in any single U.S. to that date. These faithless votes originated from three states: Washington, , and . Five deviated from pledges to , while two deviated from pledges to . The deviations were as follows:
StateVotes for PresidentRecipient(s)
Washington3Colin Powell
Washington1Faith Spotted Eagle
Hawaii1Bernie Sanders
Texas1John Kasich
Texas1Ron Paul
These seven votes represented a negligible fraction—approximately 1.3%—of the total 538 electoral votes cast. certified the results on January 6, 2017, incorporating these faithless votes into the final tally without altering the outcome, as received 304 votes and 227.

Immediate Processing and State Interventions

Vote Validation in Affected States

In Washington, electors convened in Olympia on December 19, 2016, as required by state law, casting ballots amid protests outside the capitol. The tallied the votes as submitted: eight for , three for , and one for , certifying this result for transmission to despite deviations from the popular vote winner. In Hawaii, the four Democratic electors met at the state capitol in on the same date, with one, David Mulinix, submitting a ballot for for president instead of . State officials initially recorded and certified the tally—three votes for and one for —consistent with the ballots cast, forwarding the certificate to federal authorities. In , electors gathered in St. Paul, where one initially cast a vote for Sanders, but the canvassing board, citing violation of the elector's pledge, promptly dismissed the elector and seated an alternate, who voted for , resulting in all ten votes certified for her without the deviant included.

Invalidation and Replacements

In , three Democratic electors cast ballots on December 19, 2016, for (two votes) and (one vote) instead of the pledged candidates and . immediately rejected these ballots under state law requiring electors to vote consistent with the popular vote winner, appointing three alternate electors who then cast votes for and Kaine. The upheld this invalidation and replacement on December 21, 2016, in a 5-2 decision, ruling that the state could disregard nonconforming votes and substitute the alternates' ballots to enforce the pledge. This action preserved Colorado's full nine electoral votes for the Clinton-Kaine slate, preventing any deviation in the state's certification sent to . In Hawaii, three Democratic electors initially prepared to vote for Bernie Sanders on December 19, 2016, but state officials and party leaders intervened, leading two to recast their ballots for before finalization; only one Sanders vote was ultimately cast and counted. Although Hawaii lacked a binding at the time, this intervention effectively nullified two intended votes, restoring the pledged slate for five of the state's six electors. In Washington, four Democratic electors cast votes on December 19, 2016—three for Powell and one for —which were initially accepted and certified, reducing Clinton's tally from that state. However, state law imposed $1,000 fines on each, which were upheld by Washington courts and later affirmed by the in 2020, demonstrating enforcement mechanisms to deter future deviations even when votes are not pre-emptively replaced. These state interventions limited the impact of faithless actions, with Colorado's replacements and Washington's penalties exemplifying legal safeguards that enforced compliance. The net effect on the tally left with 304 votes, as the five counted Democratic faithless votes nullified equivalent votes without shifting any to Trump, while the two Republican faithless votes similarly reduced Trump's total but did not alter the outcome.

Recipients of Deviated Votes

The deviated presidential votes cast by faithless electors on December 19, 2016, went to five non-nominee individuals, each receiving at most three votes, with no impact on the final electoral tally of 304 for and 227 for . Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State, received the most deviated votes with three from Washington state electors originally pledged to Clinton. , U.S. Senator from Vermont, received one vote from a Hawaii elector pledged to Clinton. , a Native American activist opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline, received one vote from a Washington elector pledged to Clinton. On the Republican side, former Ohio Governor received one vote from a Texas elector pledged to Trump, as did former U.S. Representative from another Texas elector pledged to Trump. These votes, documented in official state certificates transmitted to the National Archives, represented symbolic deviations without altering state outcomes or national certification, as verified by congressional counting on January 6, 2017.
RecipientVotes ReceivedState(s)Pledged To
3Washington
1
1Washington
1Texas
1Texas

Pre-Vote Litigation

In December 2016, shortly after states certified their results, groups of presidential electors in several states filed lawsuits seeking to nullify pledges or laws binding them to their state's popular vote winner, aiming to facilitate faithless voting as part of a coordinated effort to deny an majority. In , where won the popular vote, four Democratic electors—dubbed "Hamilton electors"—challenged the constitutionality of the state's pledge requirement in District Court on December 6, arguing it violated their independent voting discretion under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. On , District Judge Emily E. John rejected the challenge, ruling that the electors were legally bound to vote for and that any deviation would violate state law, thereby enforcing the pledge to maintain electoral stability just days before the voting date. This swift decision, following an earlier federal district court dismissal of a related claim on grounds, underscored judicial caution against disrupting the process amid tight timelines post-certification, prioritizing state authority over individual elector discretion to avert potential chaos. Federal challenges in other states, including attempts to enjoin enforcement of binding laws, were similarly dismissed pre-vote, often for lack of standing or failure to demonstrate imminent harm, as courts deferred to state mechanisms for handling deviations during or after the vote. These rulings reflected a broader pattern of restraint, with judges avoiding preemptive federal overrides of state election procedures certified weeks earlier, thereby limiting opportunities for organized faithless actions without altering established timelines.

Post-Vote State Court Outcomes

In Washington, three Democratic electors cast votes for instead of on December 19, 2016, prompting the imposition of $1,000 fines each under Revised Code of Washington 29A.56.340, which penalizes deviations from pledged votes. The electors challenged the fines in Thurston County Superior Court, arguing the statute violated federal constitutional protections for electors' discretion; the court rejected the claim and upheld the penalties in an October 2017 ruling. The affirmed this decision on May 23, 2019, holding that the state law validly enforced pledges without infringing on electors' constitutional role, thereby affirming state authority to penalize faithless actions post-vote. In Hawaii, one elector deviated to vote for Tulsi Gabbard, but the state's chief election officer invalidated the ballot under binding pledge laws and certified the vote for Clinton on December 28, 2016, during the official canvass; no state court challenge reversed this administrative nullification. Similarly, in Minnesota, two electors voted for Bernie Sanders and one for John Kasich, but the state canvassing board refused certification of the Sanders votes, citing statutory requirements to follow the popular vote winner, while the Kasich-voting elector filed a district court suit to compel counting that was dismissed without altering the certification for Clinton. These processes faced post-vote scrutiny but resulted in no judicial reversals, with states certifying votes aligned to their popular outcomes. Across these cases, state courts and administrative bodies uniformly enforced mechanisms to nullify or penalize deviations, ensuring no votes altered certified electoral allocations from the states' popular vote results. This upheld federalism's allocation of electoral appointment to states, without federal intervention at the state level.

U.S. Supreme Court Decision in 2020

In , consolidated with Colorado Department of State v. Baca and decided unanimously on July 6, 2020, the U.S. held that the permits states to require presidential electors to vote in accordance with their pledge to support the candidate who won the state's popular vote, either through penalties or replacement. Chief Justice , writing for the Court, rejected arguments that Article II and the Twelfth Amendment grant electors absolute discretion, reasoning instead that the text appoints electors but leaves their manner of appointment—including conditions on their votes—to state control. The ruling directly addressed challenges arising from the 2016 election: in Chiafalo, four Washington electors faced $1,000 fines each for casting votes for rather than , as mandated by state law requiring adherence to the popular vote winner; the upheld the fines. In Baca, removed and replaced Micheal Baca after he submitted a vote for instead of , with a federal appeals court initially siding with the elector before reversal. Roberts emphasized historical evidence, noting that from the early onward, most states have constrained elector independence through pledges, laws, or substitutions, with fewer than 180 votes across 58 elections and none altering an outcome. The decision affirmed states' under Article II to enforce elector fidelity, debunking claims of a constitutional "elector right" to independent judgment unbound by state law. By resolving ambiguities that fueled 2016-era attempts to deviate from pledged votes, the ruling reinforced causal mechanisms of electoral stability, ensuring state-level enforcement could prevent minority factions from exploiting elector discretion to override popular mandates in close contests. No justices dissented, though three concurred separately to note the opinion's narrow focus on state enforcement without addressing federal constraints.

Outcomes, Impact, and Critiques

Effect on Final Electoral Tally

On January 6, 2017, a of the convened to tally the Electoral College votes submitted by the states, certifying 304 votes for and 227 for . This reflected adjustments from the initial projections of 306 for Trump and 232 for Clinton, accounting for seven faithless votes: two Republican electors in who cast ballots for and , respectively, and five Democratic electors—three in Washington for , one in for , and one in for . The votes had no effect on the election's outcome, as Trump maintained a majority exceeding the 270 votes required under the 12th Amendment, preventing any by the . Net, the deviations subtracted two votes from Trump's total and five from Clinton's, widening the certified margin from 74 votes to 77 votes in Trump's favor. No state-level invalidations altered the submitted certificates for these seven votes, though Washington later imposed fines on its three faithless electors without retroactively changing the tally.

Broader Implications for Electoral Integrity

The faithless elector incidents of December 2016, totaling seven deviations (five of which were ultimately counted after state interventions), demonstrated the Electoral College's resilience, as they neither altered the statewide outcomes nor affected the national tally of 304 votes for against 227 for . These events, occurring amid partisan tensions, prompted litigation that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 2020 decision in , affirming states' constitutional authority under Article II to enforce pledges or impose penalties on electors who deviate from the state's popular vote winner. This ruling validated mechanisms in 32 states and the District of Columbia at the time, enabling immediate removal or vote nullification of faithless actions, thereby reinforcing procedural safeguards without necessitating federal intervention. Empirical data across U.S. shows electors have cast approximately 180 deviating votes since , yet none have proven decisive in determining a presidential winner, as deviations have never overcome a state's certified majority or shifted the balance. In 2016, the deviations—primarily from Democratic electors protesting Trump—lacked the scale to challenge results in states he carried decisively, underscoring how the system's state-based allocation, tied to popular majorities, inherently dilutes isolated defections. This pattern preserves by aligning elector behavior with voter intent at the state level, where slates are selected, rather than permitting individual autonomy that could undermine certified returns. The 2016 experience and subsequent judicial clarification bolstered federalism by affirming states' primary role in appointing and constraining electors, countering arguments for structural overhauls like a national popular vote that bypass constitutional processes. By empowering states to bind electors—now operative in over 30 jurisdictions—the framework minimizes risks of post-vote subversion, ensuring the causal link between state electorates and presidential allocation remains intact without eroding the decentralized design intended to balance populous and smaller states' influences. This stability has withstood empirical tests, including close contests, affirming the Electoral College's capacity to reflect aggregated state preferences reliably.

Criticisms of Faithless Elector Attempts

The faithless elector initiatives in 2016 drew criticism for their pronounced partisan asymmetry, with coordinated campaigns predominantly pressuring Republican electors pledged to to defect, while exerting minimal equivalent effort against Democratic electors pledged to . Groups such as the Hamilton Electors aimed to secure defections from at least 37 Republican electors to deny Trump the presidency, a threshold that would have required overriding certified state results where Trump prevailed. Opponents characterized these post-election maneuvers as sour grapes by those unwilling to accept the certified popular vote outcomes in key states, highlighting a selective invocation of elector discretion only against the victorious candidate. Such efforts were further condemned as an undemocratic of voter intent, insofar as electors function as agents bound by the popular mandate in their states, and voting disrupts the causal link between citizen ballots and final . Although no outcome alteration occurred—resulting in only five effective defections from Trump pledges versus two from Clinton's—the push elevated individual judgment over systemic rules, constituting an ethical breach of pledged fidelity that historical has rarely tolerated. The initiatives inflicted causal damage by destabilizing certified processes in affected jurisdictions, such as where initial faithless ballots necessitated court-ordered replacements, fostering perceptions of electoral fragility and eroding broader confidence in institutional reliability even absent a tally shift. Left-leaning narratives often recast these actions as conscientious resistance, yet this framing disregarded the constitutional emphasis on state-directed uniformity and exposed a toward rule-bending when outcomes disfavor prevailing ideologies, as evidenced by the absence of symmetric in prior cycles. Courts' subsequent affirmation of pledge enforcement underscored the primacy of procedural integrity over subjective rationales, validating critiques that prioritized empirical adherence to voter-directed norms.

References

  1. https://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/FaithlessElectors.html
  2. https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2016
  3. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/which-candidates-did-the-seven-faithless-electors-support-election-2016/
  4. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf
  5. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
  6. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C2-1/ALDE_00013798/
  7. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-12/
  8. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp
  9. https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2017-08/research-state-laws-pres-electors-nov16.pdf
  10. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/electoral-college-explained
  11. https://fairvote.org/do-faithless-electors-change-presidential-election-results/
  12. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/
  13. https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/results
  14. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-one-election-where-faithless-electors-made-a-difference
  15. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Electoral-College/Electoral-College/
  16. https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2016.pdf
  17. https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/key-dates
  18. https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/reports/summary-electoral-college-laws-oct2024.pdf
  19. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/can-members-electoral-college-choose-who-they-vote
  20. https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/faithless-electors-wont-affect-any-presidential-election
  21. https://www.cpr.org/2020/07/06/supreme-court-unanimously-sides-with-colorado-washington-in-faithless-electors-case/
  22. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/06/minnesotas-biden-electors-pledge-to-stay-on-script
  23. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/meet-the-hamilton-electors-hoping-for-an-electoral-college-revolt/508433/
  24. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/16/13920444/electoral-college-trump-hamilton-electors
  25. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/electoral-college-effort-stop-trump-231350
  26. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38340115
  27. https://time.com/4603254/celebrities-electoral-college-donald-trump-video/
  28. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/17/gop-electors-targeted-500k-ad-buy-final-anti-trump-push/95562336/
  29. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-electors-activist-campaign-electoral-college-232635
  30. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-petition-asks-electoral-college-not-vote-trump-n686511
  31. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/electors-under-siege-232774
  32. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-electoral-college-faithless-trump-231731
  33. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/electoral-college-rogue-electors-hamilton-232802
  34. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/dec/19/washington-electors-split-four-votes-away-from-cli/
  35. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-electors-lessig-232598
  36. https://hls.harvard.edu/today/lessig-who-argued-on-behalf-of-faithless-electors-responds-to-the-supreme-courts-decision/
  37. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/how-a-group-lawyers-is-helping-faithless-electors-vote-conscience-q-a-954770/
  38. https://www.sos.wa.gov/about-office/from-our-corner/general/wa-electoral-college-8-votes-clinton-4-faithless-voters-others
  39. https://apnews.com/general-news-65eb7dd49548417a8f0b92f101eb049a
  40. https://thehill.com/homenews/news/311119-democratic-elector-in-hawaii-votes-for-sanders/
  41. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/34093079/hawaii-faithless-elector-breaks-law-to-cast-dissenting-vote/
  42. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/12/19/minnesota-electors-cast-10-votes-for-clinton
  43. https://apnews.com/the-latest-faithless-elector-explains-vote-for-sanders-7e30fb8a8269462e89e90d6a53ffa2ae
  44. https://www.sos.wa.gov/about-office/news/2020/secretary-state-responds-todays-us-supreme-court-ruling-faithless-electors
  45. https://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/06/colorado-presidential-electors-lawsuit-to-block-donald-trump/
  46. https://apnews.com/article/433a67ccc2e24c0fa65dd44a7729dcfc
  47. https://www.courthousenews.com/faithless-electors-lose-high-court-battle-over-2016-votes/
  48. https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/washington-faithless-electors-challenge/
  49. https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2019%252005%252024%2520Four%2520Washington%2520state%2520electors%2520decided%2520not%2520to%2520vote%2520for%2520Hillary%2520Clinton%2520in%25202016.pdf
  50. https://www.heraldnet.com/news/state-high-court-upholds-1000-fines-on-faithless-electors/
  51. https://minnlawyer.com/2016/12/23/faithless-elector-challenges-minnesota-law/
  52. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/07/opinion-analysis-court-upholds-faithless-elector-laws/
  53. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/19-465
  54. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-518_6k47.pdf
  55. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/19-518
  56. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/electoral-college-2020-faithless-electors/6159795002/
  57. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/supreme-courts-faithless-electors-decision-validates-case-for-the-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/
  58. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/19/electoral-college-revolt-faithless-electors-analysis
  59. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/2016-put-pressure-electoral-college
  60. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/drama-filled-electoral-college-vote-fitting-ending-2016-election-n697521
  61. https://www.hoover.org/research/beware-faithless-electors
  62. https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/facpubs/1102/
  63. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-close-case-concerns-about-chaos-from-faithless-electors/
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.