What Are Faithless Electors?

A faithless elector is a member of the Electoral College who doesn’t vote for the presidential or vice presidential candidate he or she pledged to support. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of a presidential election, and the Supreme Court has ruled that states can stop them.

What the law says

The Constitution doesn’t say how electors must vote, so the rules come from the states. Most states now require electors to vote for their party’s nominees, but they enforce that requirement differently:

• Cancel and replace. A growing number of states treat a vote for anyone else as a resignation: the vote is voided and the elector is replaced on the spot. Many use the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act, drafted by the Uniform Law Commission in 2010. The commission counted 18 enactments of the act or similar laws as of 2026.
• Penalties. A few states fine or criminally penalize faithless electors but still count their votes.
• Pledge only. Some states require a pledge but have no way to enforce it, and a minority have no requirement at all.

In July 2020, in Chiafalo v. Washington and a companion case from Colorado, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that states may require electors to honor their pledges and may penalize or replace those who don’t. Both cases grew out of the 2016 election.

How often it happens

By the most widely cited count, there have been about 165 faithless votes in U.S. history, split between votes for president and for vice president. Most fall into three groups.

• A candidate died. The largest single case came in 1872. Horace Greeley, the Liberal Republican and Democratic nominee, died after Election Day, and his electors scattered their votes: 42 for Thomas Hendricks, 18 for B. Gratz Brown, two for Charles Jenkins and one for David Davis. Three Georgia electors voted for Greeley anyway; Congress refused to count those votes. In 1912, Vice President James Sherman died six days before the election, and his eight electoral votes went to Nicholas Murray Butler.
• Objections to a running mate. Most 19th-century defections involved vice presidential nominees.
• Protest votes. A small number of electors have simply refused to back their ticket.

Notable faithless electors

• 1796: Samuel Miles, a Pennsylvania Federalist, voted for Thomas Jefferson instead of John Adams. He’s the first known faithless elector.
• 1820: William Plumer of New Hampshire cast the only vote against President James Monroe, voting for John Quincy Adams. The popular story says Plumer wanted George Washington to remain the only president elected unanimously. Plumer himself said he disapproved of Monroe.
• 1828 and 1832: Seven Georgia electors voted for William Smith for vice president instead of John C. Calhoun in 1828. In 1832, Pennsylvania’s 30 electors backed Andrew Jackson but voted for William Wilkins for vice president instead of Martin Van Buren.
• 1948 to 1972: Preston Parks of Tennessee voted for Strom Thurmond instead of Harry Truman (1948). W.F. Turner of Alabama voted for Walter B. Jones instead of Adlai Stevenson (1956). Henry Irwin, an Oklahoma Republican, voted for Harry Byrd instead of Richard Nixon (1960). Lloyd Bailey of North Carolina voted for George Wallace instead of Nixon (1968). Roger MacBride of Virginia voted for Libertarian John Hospers instead of Nixon (1972); his vice presidential vote made Tonie Nathan the first woman to receive an electoral vote.
• 1976 to 2004: Mike Padden of Washington voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford (1976). Margarette Leach of West Virginia swapped Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen on her ballots in protest (1988). Barbara Lett-Simmons of D.C. left her ballot blank to protest the District’s lack of voting representation in Congress (2000). An anonymous Minnesota elector voted for “John Ewards,” apparently by mistake, instead of John Kerry (2004).

The only time it mattered: 1836

Martin Van Buren won the presidency comfortably in 1836, but his running mate, Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, did not. Virginia’s 23 Democratic electors refused to vote for Johnson, largely because of his decades-long relationship with Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman of mixed race. They voted instead for former South Carolina Sen. William Smith. That left Johnson with 147 electoral votes, one short of a majority.

For the only time in history, the Senate chose the vice president under the 12th Amendment. On Feb. 8, 1837, it elected Johnson over Whig Francis Granger, 33 to 16.

2016: A modern record

Before the electors met in December 2016, activists lobbied Republican electors to deny Donald Trump a majority. That didn’t happen, but 10 electors tried to break ranks, the most for living candidates in modern times. Seven of those votes counted:

• Four Washington Democrats: three for Colin Powell and one for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Yankton Sioux elder and the first Native American to receive an electoral vote for president.
• One Hawaii Democrat, for Bernie Sanders.
• Two Texas Republicans, one for John Kasich and one for Ron Paul.

Three other Democratic electors, in Colorado, Minnesota and Maine, tried to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. Colorado and Minnesota voided the votes and replaced the electors. In Maine, the elector’s vote for Sanders was ruled out of order, and he voted for Clinton on a second ballot.

Washington fined its four faithless electors $1,000 each. Three appealed, and their case became Chiafalo v. Washington. No elector broke ranks in 2020 or 2024. (See also how electors are chosen.)