--- title: Faithless Electors: What Happens If They Swing the Results? description: If the election results Tuesday come down to a razor thin margin, the fate of the presidential campaign could hinge on faithless electors. canonical: https://time.com/4560682/faithless-electors/ author: Haley Sweetland Edwards article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-07T18:38:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T16:22:50.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: What Happens If Faithless Electors Swing the Results? og:description: Four electors have already threatened to change their votes. og:url: https://time.com/4560682/faithless-electors/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5c103c7214034c6/6988ad63524fc057c1dfa24c/faithless-voters.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Election Minnesota Voting Stickers og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Happens If Faithless Electors Swing the Results? twitter:description: Four electors have already threatened to change their votes. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5c103c7214034c6/6988ad63524fc057c1dfa24c/faithless-voters.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Happens If Faithless Electors Swing the Results? > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: How 2016 Turned Into a Battle of the Sexes [Watch (HLS stream): How 2016 Turned Into a Battle of the Sexes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/IQPiMq6t.m3u8) (2:56)  _Published 2016-11-03. The 2016 election is a referendum on what women can be--and what men can get away with_  by [Haley Sweetland Edwards](https://time.com/author/haley-sweetland-edwards/)  ## Haley Sweetland Edwards Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:22 PM UTCPublished: Nov 7, 2016 6:38 PM UTC  I Voted stickers sit for voters upon dropping off their absentee ballot at the elections office inside the Plato Building in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 23, 2016. I Voted stickers sit for voters upon dropping off their absentee ballot at the elections office inside the Plato Building in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 23, 2016. Liam James Doyle—AP  by [Haley Sweetland Edwards](https://time.com/author/haley-sweetland-edwards/)  ## Haley Sweetland Edwards Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:22 PM UTCPublished: Nov 7, 2016 6:38 PM UTC If the election results Tuesday come down to a razor thin margin, the fate of the presidential race could very well hinge on the consciences of four, unelected citizens whose names you’ve never heard: Robert Satiacum, Bret Chiafalo, Baoky Vu and Chris Suprun. Two are Republican. Two are Democratic. And all four are threatening to become what’s known as “faithless electors”—citizens sent to the Electoral College who break their pledge to vote for their party’s ticket. Satiacum, a Democratic elector from Washington who supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, swears up and down he won’t vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton. “No, no, no on Hillary. Absolutely not. No way,” he [told the Seattle _Times_](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/hes-a-state-democratic-elector-but-robert-satiacum-says-he-wont-vote-for-clinton/) last week. Chiafalo, who is also a Democratic elector from Washington, is in the same boat. Having originally supported Sanders, he says he doesn’t know if he can in good conscience cast an electoral vote for the Democratic nominee. Meantime, Vu, an immigrant and Republican elector from Georgia, says he can’t reconcile his position on immigration with a vote for Donald Trump, while Suprun, a Republican elector from Texas, so dislikes the GOP nominee that he [told Politico he’d consider casting a vote for Clinton](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-electoral-college-texas-chris-suprun-227422) instead. (Suprun told TIME Tuesday that he intends to support Trump.) If any of them act on their promises, it would be rare. In the 240 year history of the U.S., there have been [157 faithless electors](http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=973), according to the nonprofit FairVote. Nearly half changed their votes because the candidate to whom they were pledged died before the Electoral College met, three chose to abstain and the other 82 broke their pledge for reasons of personal preference or conscience. But none has ever successfully changed the outcome of an election. This year could be different. If the margin of victory for either Trump or Clinton in the 538-seat Electoral College comes down to one or two votes, as it did in 2000, it’s possible that a faithless elector could keep a candidate from passing the halfway mark, banking 270\. While that exact scenario has never happened, it’s been close. In the 2000 election, for example, George W. Bush won the Electoral College by just five votes—271 to 266, with an elector from Washington, D.C., choosing to abstain. If just three electors had flipped their vote in that case, Gore could possibly have become president. There’s a big if there, however. If an election comes down to a skirmish in the Electoral College, what _actually_ happens will likely depend on a patchwork of state laws and constitutional checks. In Washington state, for example, it’s technically illegal for an elector to break his pledge to his party, although the ramifications are minimal and no elector has ever been prosecuted. If Satiacum and Chiafalo follow through on their threats to break their party pledge, they could be slapped with fines of around $1,000\. In Georgia and Texas, where there are no laws governing electors, Vu and Suprun would face no consequences. But that doesn’t mean their votes will necessarily stand. If any faithless elector ends up swaying the outcome of the election, federal lawmakers have a couple of [avenues of recourse](http://time.com/4558445/election-day-voting-problems/), both of which are baked into the U.S. Constitution. The first applies if an elector abstains or flips his vote in such a way that it results in an Electoral College tie. In such a case, then a little known provision buried in the Twelfth Amendment mandates that the House decides the president, while the Senate chooses the vice president. Each state delegation in the House casts one vote for president, and whichever candidates get the simple majority wins. The second constitutional check is more broad. On January 6, 2017, the newly elected Congress will meet to determine if the Electoral College vote was “regularly given.” For most of the country’s 57 past presidential elections, this vote has been ceremonial. But it doesn’t have to be. If just one House member and one senator objects to the way that the Electoral College vote played out—for example, if a faithless elector swings the final tally—then the new members can retreat to chambers to vote on what to do about it. If the House and Senate agree, their decision is final. If the House or the Senate do not agree, then the dispute goes to the “executive of the state,” meaning the state’s Secretary of State, who would make the final call. In other words, if Satiacum, Chiafalo, Vu, or Suprun cast a vote that ultimately alters the course of the election, and anyone in the newly-elected House or Senate balks, then the decision, in all likelihood, will be delegated to Washington Secretary of State [Kim Wyman](https://www.sos.wa.gov/office/kim-wyman.aspx), Georgia Secretary of State [Brian Kemp](http://sos.ga.gov), or Texas Secretary of State [Carlos Cascos](http://www.sos.state.tx.us). And while it’s impossible to say what, exactly, those state chiefs would choose, they would be under extraordinary pressure to honor the voters’ will. ## Transcript If 2016 was going to be a battle of the sexes, everyone thought Hillary Clinton would be the main combatant. But this year, Trump, not Clinton, has made this cycle the most gendered election in political history. These are just the greatest hits. After Megyn Kelly asked him this question at a primary debate, You call women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, And disgusting animals. You know you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever. He's called Hillary Clinton disgusting for taking a bathroom break. Sorry. [ LAUGH ] Donald Trump said the following about you. Quote look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? He slammed GOP primary opponent Carly Fiorina for her appearance. And he's accused Clinton of playing the woman card. She's constantly playing the woman card. It's the only way she may get elected. On the other hand Clinton is emphasizing the historic nature of her gender more than she did in 2008. She gave her first speech as a presumptive nominee to Planned Parenthood, where she said the word abortion, Legal abortions. 16 times. By contrast, Barack Obama almost never says that word. Women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health. She frequently refers to herself as a grandmother and in her first appearance at the DNC, she had this message for the next generation of female leaders. If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch Let me just say. I may become the first woman president but one of you is next. Still, Hillary Clinton is a presidential candidate who just happens to be a woman. Donald Trump is a man for whom the presidency is the ultimate validation of his masculinity. [ UNKNOWN ] And he referred to my hands. If they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee you. And his followers have taken their cues from the top. [ BLEEP ] Hillary. I still can't hear with this [ BLEEP ] in my ear. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. For other Trump supporters, this election is about jobs, trade, and the economy. I will be the greatest jobs president that god ever created. But those issues are linked to a massive social shift away from an economy Economy based on male breadwinners. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico- When Trump talks about jobs, he's talking about a specific kind of job. The manufacturing and industrial jobs that once allowed men to support family on a single income. In other words, the jobs that made men feel like men. As those industries have declined in Last three decades, others have grown. And the fastest growing industries education and health care are dominated by women. So the November election has turned into a referendum on gender, but it was Trump who justified on the battlefield. Which means that this November, American voters will be sending a message about how men are allowed to behave and what women are allowed to achieve. 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