THE U.S. ELECTIONS ELECTORAL COLLEGIANS: WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 12

THE U.S. ELECTIONS ELECTORAL COLLEGIANS: WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO

(By

JACQVIN SANDERS.

I. Newsweek Feature Service)

Every four years, the American people go through the soul-searching process of voting for a President. Then, they put his actual election into the hands of 538 generally obscure members of the Electoral College—and hope the 538 will elect the man who came first in the balloting. Yet when the College meets this year, it could quite legally elect Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace or Mickey Mantle—instead of the voters’ choice, Richard Nixon.

The Constitution. does not require that an elector follow his constituency’s preference. Though 16 States do have such a law, none of the laws has any teeth. Oklahoma's deterrent is the strongest: a $lOOO fine.

The College, nonetheless; survives and on Monday the electors representing the winning candidate in each of the 50 States will collect in their capitals to cast the votes that really elect a President. While their purpose will be the same, the procedures will vary from State to State. Handshake—And Pay In New York, the electors will assemble in Albany, have lunch on the State, cast their ballots and then get a drink, a canape and warm handshakes from Governor Nelson Rockefeller and his wife. For their trouble, the electors Will receive $l5 in pay and a 10-cents-a-mile travel allowance.

The California group will also probably meet the Governor, because Governor Ronald Reagan himself is an elector. But, otherwise, the ceremony will be swift and simple. In fact, Mrs Angela Lombardi, of Glendale, expects to cast her vote in Sacramento, collect her $lO fee and 8-cents-a-mile allowance and then be back home in time to cook her family dinner. In other States like Wisconsin, though, the electors do not rate a fee or a Governor’s handshake. There, all they get is 3-cents-per-mile expenses.

No-one expects the electors to go off on a political tangent of their own this time around. Since 1820, only four have cast votes against “instructions” from the voters. But one of those four —Mississippian Clay Tucker who voted for Senator Harry Byrd in 1960—is still a member of the College. “Rubber-stamping” A number of others, more over, have publicly described their role as something more than a mere rubber-stamping of the electorate’s decision. Before election day, for instance, Missouri Democratic elector, Mr James P. Landis, said, “It is possible that some event could happen between the election and the meeting to show that the person receiving the most votes was unsuited for office. The elector has a moral obligation to do what is best for his country.” Such a philosophy, in the wrong heads, could lead to considerable trouble. Yet most electors seem never to have considered shifting their votes, even in the case of a deadlock. “It wouldn't affect me.” rasped old Joe Mulhern, a Democratic elector in Massachusetts. “I’d stay with Humphrey even if they promised me the Mayflower Hotel.”

Little of illuminating brilliance or leadership could be expected from the assortment of citizenry that seems to become members of the Electoral College. Though some are chosen in primaries, they are selected because they represent a Presidential candidate, not because of their personal merits. Anyway, most are chosen by party leaders at party conventions, as a reward for service. Not A Top Award Usually, it is not even a top award, because electors are often those who did not quite rate being made delegates to the party’s national convention. Sometimes, too, they are money-givers or fund-raisers, or just loyal minions who have struggled mightily for the party.

A Democratic elector, Mr Louise Grant Smith of Missouri, acknowledges: “You wouldn’t be made a delegate to your church convention if you only went to church on Easter.” Some prominent figures, though, do occasionally turn up in the College. Among the more celebrated members of this year’s class: retired Army General Mark Clark for Nixon in South Carolina, Lieutenant-Gover-nor Robert Finch for Nixon in California, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist James Mlchener for Humphrey in Pennsylvania.

Cantankerous Mr Russell Moore, a Wallace elector, will be there too; he is the Mississippi judge best remembered for his recommendation a few years ago that “Ole Miss” authorities dig a moat around the campus to keep out the United States Army during the riots about admitting the Negro James Meredith as a student. Candidate failure and second thoughts eliminated two possible embarrassments for this year’s Electoral College. Electors’ Married In Connecticut, one Wallace elector married another, after both had been selected for the party slate. The bride’s change of name might have caused her vote to he challenged, had Wallace won the State. And in Utah, the Republican ’ State convention named two incumbent Congressmen to the College—and then had to replace them when someone remembered that candidates cannot be electors.

This kind of oversight surprises no-one, least of all the average member of a convention choosing electors. “Don't forget.” says Washington State representative. Mr Arlie Dejarnat, “they’re elected as kind of an afterthought, after the important business of electing delegates to the national convention.”

Odder things than illegal electors, though, have befallen the College. In 1872, there were votes for a candidate—Horace Greeley—who was qualified for the Presidency in every way except one: between his loss of the election and the meeting of the College, he had died. Of course, the most dangerous potential for the College rises when there is a strong third-party candidate and. therefore, a chance that noone will receive a majority. On such an occasion, the electors might well be inundated by pressure to change their votes. No Second Vote If they withstand the pressure, the matter leaves their hands, for the Constitution makes it clear that no second vote will be allowed in the College. The Presidential election then goes to the U.S. House of Representatives: the Vice-President is chosen by the Senate. Despite the Wallace thirdparty candidacy, the country will escape this electoral morass again this year. The College will certainly elect Richard Nixon President and —according to law—send its ballots by registered mail to the President of the Senate (ironically, this will be VicePresident Humphrey). But dissatisfaction with the system continues, and so does the feeling that the College should be abolished. This sentiment is widely shared even by those most closely involved. “I think it should be changed,” says Cliff Stone, elector for the Democratic Party in Washington. “Actually, it’s a stinking way to elect a President.”