Editing Unpledged elector (section)

==Unpledged electors in the 20th century==

=== Background ===
After the [[American Civil War]] and [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]], the Democratic Party gained an almost unbreakable dominance in the [[Southern United States]], and the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]s, associated with [[Abraham Lincoln]] and the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] cause, were correspondingly unelectable there. The nationwide Democratic party became increasingly [[Liberalism|liberal]] in the early 20th century, a shift that accelerated with the election of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. By contrast, the leaders of the Democratic Party in the South, although somewhat supportive of certain parts of the [[New Deal]] and other liberal Democratic economic policies, were in many other aspects [[conservatism|conservative]]. In particular, they were vehemently protective of segregation and strongly opposed to civil rights for [[African Americans]].

In several mid-20th-century elections, unpledged Democratic electors appeared on the ballots in several Southern states; in some cases they ran in opposition to electors pledged to the nationwide Democratic candidate, and in others they were the only Democratic electors that appeared on the ballot. The goal was to have electors who could act as [[kingmaker]]s in a close election, extracting concessions that would favor conservative Southern Democrats in exchange for their votes.

=== Election ===

====1944====
The first modern slates of unpledged electors were fielded in the [[U.S. presidential election, 1944|1944 election]] as a protest against certain aspects of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]’s [[New Deal]] and support for [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]].

In [[Texas]], a splinter group of Democrats known as the [[Texas Regulars]] fielded a slate of electors not pledged to any candidate; similar slates were on the ballot in [[South Carolina]] and [[Mississippi]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f7a5KxIcznAC&q=unpledged+electors+1944+south+carolina&pg=PA72|title=Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement|last=Bloom|first=Jack M.|date=1987|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0253204070|pages=72|language=en}}</ref> While they won or placed second in several counties, none of the groups met much success.

====1956====
In [[U.S. presidential election, 1956|1956]], unpledged slates were on the ballot in [[Alabama]] (20,150 votes, 4.1% of the vote), [[Louisiana]] (44,520 votes, 7.2% of the vote and they won four [[List of parishes of Louisiana|parishes]]), [[Mississippi]] (42,266 votes, 17.3% of the vote and they won seven [[list of counties in Mississippi|counties]]) and South Carolina (88,509 votes, 29.5% of the vote and 21 [[list of counties in South Carolina|counties]]).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ww9gBgAAQBAJ&q=unpledged+electors+1956&pg=PT588|title=Nixon's Secrets: The Rise, Fall, and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon|last=Stone|first=Roger|date=2014-08-11|publisher=Skyhorse|isbn=9781632200600|language=en}}</ref>

====1960====
The [[U.S. presidential election, 1960|1960 election]] was the only election that saw unpledged electors actually elected to the electoral college.

In that year, a slate of eight unpledged electors in Mississippi won a plurality of the vote there (116,248 votes, or 39% of the total).

Louisiana's popular vote went to a slate of electors pledged to Kennedy and Johnson, but a slate of unpledged electors on the ballot there won 169,572 votes (21% of the vote).

In Georgia, the state legislature, although allowing for a separate group of unpledged electors according to state law, requested the people give a non-binding straw vote to determine whether Kennedy should have pledged electors on the ballot or whether his electors should be free to choose to act as unpledged electors. The voters overwhelmingly supported the "Pledge Free" Electors, but after it was clear they ultimately would not affect the Electoral College's decision all Georgia electors voted for Kennedy, despite concerns they would abandon their pledges and become faithless electors.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1960-09-16 |title=GEORGIA ELECTORS 'FREED' BY VOTERS; Democrats Back Unpledged Slate – Party Leaders Cite Confusion on Wording |newspaper=The New York Times |language=en |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1960/09/16/archives/georgia-electors-freed-by-voters-democrats-back-unpledged-slate.html |access-date=2023-08-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Novotny |first1=Patrick |date=2004 |title=John F. Kennedy, the 1960 Election, and Georgia's Unpledged Electors in the Electoral College |url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=14658910&site=eds-live&scope=site |journal=Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=88 |issue=3 |pages=375–397 |access-date=15 February 2018}}</ref>

In Alabama, the vote was not for the presidential candidates but for individual electors, with each of the 11 electors having their own separate elections. As a result of Alabama's Democratic primaries, five of the eleven nominated Democratic electors were pledged to Democratic nominees [[John F. Kennedy]] and [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and six were unpledged. Although all eleven Democratic electors were elected, the unusual situation has led to ambiguity about the correct method to calculate popular votes for Kennedy and the unpledged electors. The common practice is to give Kennedy the votes for his most-voted pledged elector and to give unpledged electors their popular votes by subtracting the votes for the most-voted unpledged elector by the votes for the most-voted Kennedy-pledged elector; the unusual calculation for the unpledged electors is done so that the total votes align with the estimated total number of people who voted in Alabama's presidential contest (although the exact number is uncertain because voters are allowed to abstain from voting for all 11 electors' elections).<ref>Leip, Dave. [http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1960&f=0&off=0&elect=0&fips=1&submit=Retrieve 1960 "Presidential General Election Results – Alabama"]. ''Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections''.</ref> However, the electoral split between Kennedy and the unpledged electors has been used to argue for a lesser-used method of splitting the vote of the highest-voted Democratic elector proportionally between Kennedy and the unpledged electors; some have used said vote split to argue that Kennedy had lost the popular vote to Nixon, both in the Alabama popular vote and resultantly the national popular vote.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Trende |first=Sean |date=October 19, 2012 |title=Did JFK Lose the Popular Vote? |url=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/19/did_jfk_lose_the_popular_vote_115833.html |access-date=August 15, 2023 |website=Real Clear Politics}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Fund|first1=John|title=A Minority President|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110004320|access-date=25 August 2016|work=Opinion Journal|date=November 20, 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031123133522/http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110004320|archive-date=November 23, 2003}}</ref> Even disregarding proportionally splitting the vote of the highest-voted Democratic elector, simply summing Kennedy and Nixon's total votes from their multiple electors and evenly splitting them among the 11 electors' races would give Nixon a national popular vote victory of 34,108,157 to 34,076,629. Such calculation would temporarily be used in the ''Congressional Quarterly'' before the change to the current vote-counting method.

When the electoral college cast its vote, all fourteen unpledged electors cast their votes for conservative Democrat [[Harry F. Byrd]] for president and [[Strom Thurmond]] for vice president after trying to influence other Southern states into unpledging their electors to join them.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=December 12, 1960|title=Statement of Unpledged Electors from Mississippi and Alabama|url=http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/ref/collection/citizens/id/1153|journal=Citizens' Council|access-date=February 9, 2018}}</ref> They were joined by [[Henry D. Irwin]] from Oklahoma, a faithless Republican elector who objected to Republican nominee [[Richard M. Nixon]]. Irwin cast his vice presidential vote for [[Barry Goldwater]]. Irwin had attempted to broker a coalition between the unpledged electors and other Republican electors, but to no avail: Kennedy and Johnson won a clear majority of the electoral vote.

====1964====
The last slate of unpledged electors to date was filed in Alabama in the [[United States presidential election in Alabama, 1964|1964 election]]. The slate was supported by Democratic Alabama Governor [[George C. Wallace]] while the national Democratic nominees, [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and [[Hubert H. Humphrey]], did not appear on Alabama ballots.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/03/alabama-expected-to-choose-electors-backed-by-wallace.html|title=Alabama Expected To Choose Electors Backed by Wallace|date=1964-05-03|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-02-09|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The electors won 30.6 percent of the vote, but the state was ultimately won by Republican nominees [[Barry Goldwater]] and [[William E. Miller]].

=== Aftermath ===
The Republican ticket's victory in Alabama and four other Southern states (the only states Goldwater carried besides his home state of [[United States presidential election in Arizona, 1964|Arizona]]) heralded a trend that would put an end to the practice of nominating unpledged electors.

As a strategy, it had been largely ineffective, and southern conservatives, many of whom were still reluctant to vote Republican, began urging Governor Wallace to run for the White House in 1968 under the auspices of a traditional third-party presidential campaign. Once Wallace announced his intention to run for president, the rationale for running slates of formally unpledged electors disappeared. Nevertheless, Wallace sought commitments from his "pledged" electors in the states he was most likely to win that they would not necessarily vote for him but rather as he directed, thus allowing the Alabama Governor to act as a power broker in case of an election with no clear winner in the weeks between the general election and the Electoral College vote. Wallace ultimately carried four Southern states under the American Independent Party banner, in addition to his home state of Alabama in which he ran as the official nominee of the state's Democratic Party. While a shift of a few thousand votes in a handful of key states would have resulted in no candidate winning a clear majority of the electoral vote, Republican [[Richard Nixon]] ultimately won a clear majority of the electoral vote. Unable to influence the result, Wallace's 45 electors voted as pledged; he ultimately finished with 46 electoral votes due to the support of a North Carolinian faithless elector.

Following Nixon's triumph in 1968, former Southern Democratic supporters began voting Republican in large numbers. By 1972, Wallace was seeking the national Democratic nomination on a more moderate platform in a presidential campaign that was ultimately cut short after he was seriously wounded by a would-be assassin. Nixon would sweep the South in his landslide victory that year. By the time the Democrats regained the White House following the 1976 election, it was under the candidacy of [[Jimmy Carter]], a Southerner who in contrast to most of his predecessors was firmly opposed to segregation. Carter nevertheless managed to almost sweep the South, with Virginia being the only former Confederate state to not vote for him. Many other Southern Democrats, including Wallace himself, would soon follow Carter's lead.

The 1976 presidential was the last such contest in which the Democratic nominee carried a majority of Southern states. Today, the practice of nominating unpledged electors combined with Wallace's third-party presidential campaign can be seen as a transitional phase between the Democrats' traditional hold on the South and the modern political environment where the region is a Republican stronghold and where state Democratic parties, while still more conservative in some respects compared to other regions, tend to be to the left of the Republicans as in the rest of the country and tend to be more supported in predominantly African-American locales.