-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Paul Johnson wrote: > On Thursday 24 August 2006 13:04, Chris Mattern wrote: > >> No. Paul has no idea what the hell he's talking about. Most electoral >> college members are bound by state law to vote for the presidential >> candidate they were elected to vote for. > > So "less than half" suddenly constitutes a majority? I'm sorry, did you say > you worked for Ohio or Florida's Department of Elections? > >> Even the ones not so bound >> vote as they're supposed to. There has been only a handful of >> exceptions to this rule ever, and none has ever changed the result of >> an election. > > Apparently "only a handful" equals 158 times. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College#Faithless_electors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector if we leave out the cases in which a candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote, there have been 87 failures in a universe of 21,610 pledged electors, giving a failure rate of 0.4% Yes, I'd say that a 0.4% failure rate is a "handful". - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE7m3iS9HxQb37XmcRAnY7AJ4xbpqyk4Wmsij6vAHCDC/T7EpXIgCfXArc bmjzhMDRQYHqKc6UAm53THE= =PtiL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]