Often-ignored electors field loyalty queries
Will the candidate they are pledged to get their Electoral College
vote? Callers ask.
By Robert Zausner
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
It was an odd phone call.
The caller wanted to know what Cynthia Handley would do if someone offered
to deposit $2 million for her in a secret Swiss bank account.
Of course, Handley isn't just anybody. She is a Cocoa Beach resident and a
member of the Republicans' Electoral College slate in Florida, pledged to George
W. Bush.
The caller wasn't trying to get Handley to switch to Democrat Al Gore. To the
contrary, it was someone from her own party, a Republican.
"They were trying to prepare us for what comes ahead," she said. "I said, 'Oh my
God, I hadn't even thought of that.' I'm just a housewife. I don't think in terms like
that."
Handley has no intention of switching allegiance. As Bush's campaign
chairwoman for four counties on Florida's central east coast, she stands
resolutely behind her candidate. "I'd walk on hot coals for the Bush family," she
said.
Nevertheless, she is among the many Bush electors across the country who have
received calls from the news media and others about her plans for Dec. 18, when
electors cast ballots in their state capitals.
In an ordinary election, electors are all but ignored and their votes regarded as
ceremonial. But with Bush looking at the possibility of a 271-vote victory - if
Florida's popular-vote count wins him the state's 25 electoral votes - great
attention is now being paid.
In such a scenario, if just two electors, from any state at all, switched from Bush
to Gore, a 269-269 tie would be created that would leave the House of
Representatives to decide the next president; three defections would elect Gore.
None of that is likely to happen. But, then again, neither was the drama now
playing out in Florida.
Electors were getting lots of calls from network and local TV stations as well as
from newspapers and magazines. Some weren't happy about it.
"I don't think nothing," said Feliciano Foyo, a Florida elector, when asked his
opinion of the current election wrangling in his state. "I'm just going to vote for
Mr. Bush as soon as the opportunity presents itself." Then he hung up.
The Bush and Gore electors are largely politicians themselves, or party activists
or officials or fund-raisers - overall, the most faithful of the party faithful.
"I don't plan to change my mind," Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood, a Florida
elector, said yesterday. "I'm fully committed to George W. Bush, and I fully
intend to go to Tallahassee on Dec. 18 and vote for George."
"I've been involved in the party for over 20 years and I'm solid," said Wayne
MacDonald, a New Hampshire elector and the Rockingham County GOP
chairman.
MacDonald said that he had "not yet" been pressured about his vote but that
yesterday he received a letter from a Concord resident urging him to vote for
Gore. "I would like to remind you," the letter said, "that your vote is by secret
ballot."
Frances Sadler, a Florida elector who works for Lt. Gov. John Hagler, said she
also was a certain vote for Bush.
Sadler said that she had received no calls suggesting she change her vote but that
someone with the Republican National Committee had phoned to "make sure
everything was OK and that no one pressured me to change my mind."
There have been times in the past - seven in the 20th century - in which "faithless
electors" did not follow their pledges, although in no instance did it change the
outcome of an election. Electors are bound by law in only half the states, and
even then the constitutionality of those laws is in question.
It is electors such as Joe Arpaio, sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., who
equivocate just enough to make the Bush camp nervous.
"I suppose some people could be concerned because I am a little controversial
and independent," said Arpaio, noting that he "broke ranks" with fellow Arizona
Republicans and endorsed Bush instead of favorite son John McCain in the GOP
primary.
"Right now I expect to vote for Bush and I don't know what's going to change
my mind," Arpaio said in an interview yesterday.
But the sheriff then said a number of things that might unsettle Republicans.
Noting that Arizona law does not bind electors, he said: "We do have the right to
change our minds."
Commenting on the fact that Gore's national popular-vote total is larger than
Bush's, he said: "Maybe we ought to consider him."
He also said, "You never say never in politics," and "Mr. Gore is a nice guy."
Could anything persuade him to vote for Gore instead of Bush?
"Well, who knows?" Arpaio said. "That's a tough question to answer. That's a
tough question, but right now I'm committed to Bush and expect to vote for him."
But, he added teasingly: "Expect is expect. We can tear that word apart."
Robert Zausner's e-mail address is rzausner@phillynews.com |
