Every four years, we get the civics lesson that we’re not really voting for President; we’re merely voting for electors pledged to cast electoral votes for that particular Presidential candidate. The Secretary of State has a list of the electors.
Pledged to Barack Obama are Jeffrey L. Chidester, of Valparaiso; Owen “Butch†Morgan, of South Bend; Michelle Boxell, of Warsaw; Charlotte Martin, of Indianapolis; Jerry J. Lux, of Shelbyville; Connie Southworth, of Salamonia; Alan P. Hogan, of Indianapolis; Myrna E. Brown, of Vincennes; Clarence Benjamin Leatherbury, of Salem; Daniel J. Parker, of Indianapolis; and Cordelia Lewis Burks, of Indianapolis.
Pledged to John McCain are Chuck Williams, of Valparaiso; Edward Smith, of Galveston; Barbara Krisher, of Fort Wayne; Daniel Bortner, of Bedford; Virginia Marner, of Kokomo; Susan Lightle, of Greenfield; Pearl Swanigan, of Indianapolis; William Springer, of Sullivan; David Buskill, of Jeffersonville Samuel Wayne Goodman, of Greenwood; and Juana Watson, of Columbus.
Pledged to Bob Barr are Jeff Duensing, of Lowell; K. P. Nfr, of Michigan City; Jonathan Bartels, of Fort Wayne;Todd Singer, of Plainfield; John Rutherford, of Carmel; Gayle Bond, of Hagerstown; Jame Goldstein, of Indianapolis; Andrew Horning, of Freedom; Margaret Fette, of Bloomington; Melanie Hughes, of New Albany; and Mike Kole, of Fishers.
There are also electors designated for the Green Party, the Socialist Party, Chuck Baldwin, Kevin Mottus, and Ralph Nader. (I tried getting information about Kevin Mottus since he was the other one I hadn’t heard of, but a quick Google search didn’t turn up much, and I’m not interested in working that hard.)
Wow Doug, I was JUST having this exact conversation today at work. Here’s the real mindbender…and I’m seriously confused about this, though it could never happen. What if a write-in candidate wins the plurality in a state? Who are the pledged electors?
There aren’t any pledged electors for write-ins.
Thanks for the bold type, Doug!
To file as a write-in candidate for president, you have to provide the names of electors. I worked with the McKinney campaign to find electors from the Indiana Green Party. The electors are listed on the back of the form used to file as a certified write-in candidate.
Good news for write-in candidates in Marion County this year. There are plans to report votes for individual write-in candidates, instead of “write-in” as a category, but no data on specific candidates.