Republican Electors Threaten to Vote for Ron Paul Instead of Romney

Monday, September 17, 2012
Ron Paul

In the event November’s presidential election is a squeaker, Mitt Romney may be down two or more Electoral College votes from members of his own party.

 

Because of the archaic voting system used in the United States, voters do not actually vote for a candidate, but for a slate of state electors who are pledged to vote for that candidate if he or she wins the state. In most states, these electors are not legally required to vote for the candidate who won the state. In fact, there have been 87 instances in which an elector refused to vote for the presidential or vice-presidential candidate he or she was supposed to.

 

Two supporters of Ron Paul have said publicly they may not vote for Romney in the Electoral College in December. They, and others, have expressed frustration with party leaders over what they said were heavy-handed attempts throughout the campaign and the convention to deny Paul the nomination.

 

The two Paul supporters considering not voting for Romney are Ken Eastman of Nevada and Billie Zimmerman of Texas.

 

In addition, another Nevada elector, Ken Searles, says he may vote for Paul as a protest, but only if his vote doesn’t change the outcome of the election. And Kathleen Miller of Alaska plans to vote for Romney but said she might change her mind if GOP leaders engage in more “shenanigans.”

 

One defector, Melinda Wadsley from Iowa, resigned rather than vote for Romney. “They’ve never given Ron Paul a fair shot, and I’m disgusted with that. I’d like to show them how disgusted I am,” Wadsley told the Associated Press.

 

The last time a Republican elector switched his vote was 1976, when Mike Padden of Washington voted for Ronald Reagan instead for Gerald Ford.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

To Learn More:

Three Ron Paul-Supporting Electors May Not Support Republican Ticket (by Mike Baker, Associated Press)

Iowa GOP Elector Says Conscience Won't Allow Her to Vote for Romney, Resigns Her Appointment (Associated Press)

Faithless Elector (Wikipedia)

See all 42 comments

Comments

Jock Doubleday 11 years ago
"heavy-handed attempts to deny Paul the nomination"? Those weren't "attempts" by the GOP to deny Paul the nomination, those were outright (egregious unethical) actions subverting the GOP's own rules to absolutely run Ron Paul out of the convention. "Shenanigans?" That's your word for fraud, for lies, for cynical action against the Constitution and its only representative, Ron Paul.
Mike 11 years ago
Pride goes before the fall. If Obama wins because of your pride, you won't have to worry about ol' Paul ever again. A lot of us know Romney may not be the best but he is better than Obummer. If Paul addressed more of our concerns he might have had a shot. This isn't 1776 and we are now a global power even if the potus doesn't always use the best of wisdom in using that power.
marymansila 11 years ago
america please rethink your vote,RON PAUL IS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN SAVE AMERICA.THINK ABOUT YOU CHILDRENS>CHILDREN.ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.WRITE IN FOR RON PAUL!!
PeoplePower 11 years ago
Both the democratic and republican political parties demonstrated at the scripted conventions that the peoples vote does not count. Through Federal Election Fraud, assault, and threats of retaliation the RNC/GOP and romney cheated their way to the nomination. They have not only disgraced the election process but have frauded the american citizens from a fair, legal and just election process. romney is NOT the duly elected nominee, he frauded his way in. He is a disgrace and not worthy of the nomination. Obama is the same criminal fraud that romney is. A forged COLB, forged selective service card, stoled SS # that belonged to someone else. These are all felonies that should have put this criminal behind bars where he belongs but through the complicit treason of congress, senate, the judicial branch and the media, this criminal is on the ballot again. This country had better wake up and remove this treasonous government or they will have us in concentration camps.
Ann 11 years ago
Vote out all incumbents! Write in Ron Paul because the satanic cult in charge has already picked the next POTUS!
Delores Randall 11 years ago
Why? To despite their noses. There are two candidates on the platform. President Obama and Mitt Romney....duh! Going against the grain to prove what? They don't like President Obama...to each his/her own. DEM FOLKS DON'T realize they're the 47% that Mitten is not paying attention to nor giving any homage. NEXT!
Vicki 11 years ago
If I thought Americans would put Ron Paul in I would vote for him in a minute. My concern is that the media has just left him out there to hang and people bought into it. They make bad comments about him. My vote was for him, but I saw what was happening, and we must get Obama out. He will bring our country down. I hope that he endorses Romney. That is the only hope we ave og getting Obama out. Then we need to make sure Obama pays for treason.
Frank K 11 years ago
I take great umbrage at the statement that our elective system for the executive branch is "archaic". Such an uninformed statement is made out of complete ignorance of our Constitution, the principle of federalism and the wisdom behind our framers setting up just such a system. It was never the intention of the founders for the general citizenry to elect the president and vice-president. They considered the people to be ill-equipped to make such a monumental choice as they could too easily be swayed by smooth-talking politicians (and I dare anyone to dispute their assertion as that's how we got Obama). Instead, according to Article II of the Constitution, the state legislatures are to select electors from among the people who have shown themselves to be of reputable character and knowledge in government and vetting of individuals. They were not to be chosen as a "slate" of party individuals "pledged" to that party's candidate, but rather were to consider the qualities of those who had presented themselves before the nation to serve as president and vice-president and then to select the individuals who they felt would best serve the country. In this way, it gave the states one more way to keep a rein on the power of the general government. If we were to go to a popular vote, then only the major population centers in the country would receive any attention, and those areas are heavily populated by liberal Democrats. The majority of the country would not receive any attention and trends show that we would have a perpetual Democrat in the WH. With our current system, every state must be courted, although some more heavily than others as we see in this current election. I plan to devote one of my weekly blogtalkradio broadcasts on the Lone Star Tea Party site to this subject, probably in mid to late October (Tuesday evenings, 8:00 pm Central Time). If you miss any of the programs, they are archived.
Bob Vondruska 11 years ago
All of the electors should dump Mitt Romney and vote for Ron Paul. Romney is going to lose anyway, so why would these people want to waste their vote on an establishment puppet; a yes man for his neocon masters. Romney is not even his own man, has no plan for anything, and is the flip-flopping king. Besides his Mormon brethren and a few people who hate Obama so much that they would choose anyone no matter bad that person may be, Romney has no base of support. He will go down in history as the guy who lost the presidency by a wider margin than Bob Dole. Romney and the RNC need to pay for the way they treated Ron Paul and his supporters, so the best way to achieve this is to send Romney a staggeringly painful loss on election day. Romney will lose by at least 15% on a good day. Let's drive the final nail into the coffin of this cultist freak! I sincerely hope that the electors do the right thing and choose Ron Paul!
Jim 11 years ago
Remember Ross Perot. Now is not the time to fight this battle. We need anyone but Obama. I agree with R,Pauls position, however, putting the current president back in office would be a disaster.

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