Presidential Electors

Abstract

Given the key constitutional role of electors in the final selection of the U.S. President one might expect the appointed electors to act in the electoral spotlight. But that has seldom been the case, although their meeting to cast their ballot in recent years is often broadcast or videoed and highlighted on their day of action while numbers of the electors do interviews with their local media. Who are the presidential electors? This research addresses this question focusing on the electors and the process of their selection from the vantage point of the 2020 election. It offers reflection on the role electors play in the presidential electoral process in contemporary times from a democratic perspective, focusing on questions of why we might care about who they are, what their experiences are like, and their reflections on that experience. To address the central questions of this essay, that is, who contemporary electors are, how they are selected and how do they perform their electoral job and what has been their assessment of their duties, I have collected both quantitative and qualitative data about the 2020 electoral college members across the states. Quantitative data have been collected on various demographic characteristics of the electors. From the qualitative perspective, I have undertaken interviews with a sample of individual electors and supplemented those interviews with information from media reports on and interviews with individual electors about themselves and their experiences. Who they are, how they function relative to the vision of the founding fathers and what might be the implications for the role of the Electoral College in the democratic process of electing the US president? These are the major questions of this research project. It also explores the 2020 election issue of “fake electors.”