Three Republican Presidential Electors May Not Vote for Romney
When the voters go to the polls on Nov. 6, they are actually voting for electors pledged to the candidate they voted for. Presidential electors are actual people, with spouses, kids, dogs, opinions, and the rest of the stuff that goes with being people. They are not entries on some National Excel Spreadsheet. In some states electors are elected, just like convention delegates; in others, they are chosen by the state party. They will meet in their respective state capitals on Dec. 17 and cast their electoral votes for President. These electoral votes will be counted in a joint session of the newly elected Congress on Jan. 3, 2013.
Twenty-four states have laws requiring the electors to vote for the popular vote winner in their state (except Maine and Nebraska, which split electoral votes by congressional district), but if an elector decides to vote for someone else, that vote is still valid. Such an elector is called a "faithless elector," and could be punished, but none has ever been. In the other states, electors may legally vote for anyone they want to. Throughout history, 82 faithless electors have voted for the "wrong" candidate on their own initiative. Here is the list of faithless electors since WWII.
Year Note
2004 One Minnesota Democratic elector (accidentally?) voted for Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards.
2000 D.C. Democratic elector Barbara Lett-Simmons did not vote, as a protest for D.C's lack of statehood
1988 Lloyd Bentsen got 1 EV from a faithless elector in West Virginia
1976 Washington Republican elector Mike Padden voted for Ronald Reagan
1972 Virginia Republican elector Roger MacBride voted for Libertarian John Hospers
1968 North Carolina Republican elector Lloyd Bailey voted for George Wallace
1960 Oklahoma Republican elector Henry Irwin voted for Harry Byrd
1956 Alabama Democratic elector W.F. Turner voted for Walter Jones
1948 Tennessee Democratic elector Preston Parks voted for Strom Thurmond
While the parties try to pick electors they can trust, this year apparently Ron Paul supporters have managed to get themselves onto the slates that are supposed to vote for Mitt Romney, if they are chosen. Now three of them have come out and said they may not vote for Romney. There may be other stealth Paul supporters still in hiding, as Paul took control of five state caucuses. Others may be pretending to be Romney supporters but are not. There is no way to know if any will be faithless until the electoral votes are actually counted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/3-republican-members-of-electoral-college-may-not-vote-for-gop-ticket/2012/09/13/896c71c4-fd70-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story.html
If Romney were to win just over 270 electoral votes and enough electors were faithless to put him under 270 (even if he still had more than Obama), the President would be elected by the new House, with every state having one vote and the new Vice President would be elected by the new Senate. Conceivably we could have a President Romney and a Vice President Biden. Only twice has the House elected the President, in 1800 and 1824.