Unpledged elector

In United States presidential elections, an unpledged elector is a person nominated to stand as an elector but who has not pledged to support any particular presidential or vice presidential candidate, and is free to vote for any candidate when elected a member of the Electoral College. Presidential elections are indirect, with voters in each state choosing electors on Election Day in November, and these electors choosing the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States in December. Electors today are elected in every state by popular vote, and in practice have since the 19th century almost always agreed in advance to vote for a particular candidate — that is, they are said to have been pledged to that candidate. In the 20th century, however, several elections were contested by unpledged electors, who made no pledge to any candidate before the election. These anomalies largely arose over fissures within the Democratic Party over the issues of civil rights and segregation. There have been no unpledged electors in the Electoral College since 1960, and no serious general election campaign has been mounted to elect unpledged electors in any state since 1964.

The phenomenon should not be confused with that of faithless electors, who pledge their vote to a candidate before the election but ultimately vote for someone else or fail to vote at all.

When the United States Constitution was written, the Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to be a truly deliberative body whose members would choose a President (and Vice President, after 1800) based on their own preferences. They also left the method for selecting the electors for each state to the discretion of that state's legislature. Thus, the Constitution places no restriction on the behavior of the electors, and assumes that each is an independent agent.

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