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Mike W's avatar

Ha! So many Heaney's present :D Doesn't your family have a past history as Deligates in bygone elections?

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Evan Þ's avatar

Your footnote (1) makes me wonder - is there actually any requirement that electors vote for a living person? Could they "execute their pledge" by simply voting for the dead person? This was a very real prospect in the 1790's, when it would've taken a substantial time for news of someone's death to reach far-off state capitals. I can easily imagine an alternate timeline where the frail George Washington died in late 1792 and got posthumous electoral votes.

In 1872, we actually did get three electors voting for a dead man (Horace Greeley, who had died between Election Day and the electoral college meeting) - but fortunately he'd lost the election, so that didn't matter. Now that I look it up, I see that Congress officially rejected their votes... but I'm not sure why.

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