If you eliminated Theodore Roosevelt because of the 1912 election, then you fell into the trap. His electors did not defect; he won those votes fair and square. In 1988, Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen received a vote for President from a West Virginia elector (who voted for Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis for Vice President). An elector from Washington voted for Ronald Reagan in 1976, the year Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd received 15 electoral votes in 1960, from a Republican in Oklahoma, and 14 “unpledged” electors from Alabama and Mississippi (where Democrat John F. Kennedy won the popular vote over Republican Richard Nixon). And in 1956, an Alabama elector voted for Walter B. Jones (instead of the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson running against Dwight Eisenhower).
Copyright © 2000 by Richard Warren Field