Question: Why have elections when the state's winner will receive all the electoral votes?
Answer: Electors are allowed to vote for whichever candidate they want. An elector who votes for an opposing presidential candidate is called a 'faithless elector'. The last time an elector changed his vote was in 1988 when a Democratic elector voted for Lloyd Bentsen over Michael Dukakis.
Learn more about the electoral college:
- What is the electoral college?
- Why did the Founding Fathers create electors?
- How many total electoral votes are there?
- How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win?
- Which states have the most electoral votes?
- How many electors does each state have?
- What about Washington, D.C. and the electoral vote?
- What happens if there is a tie in the electoral college?
- Who are the electors?
- What procedure is followed for the electors to vote?
- Has someone received a plurality of the vote yet lost in the electoral college?
- Has a tie ever occurred in the electoral college? When?
- Why don't the candidates get a proportion of the electoral vote?
- If the state's winner chooses electors, won't the person with the most votes win?
- When do we finally have an official winner?
