Talk:List of 2016 United States presidential electors

Alabama Electors
Link for Alabama Republican and Democratic elector nominees: Who are Alabama's electors in the Electoral College? These 9 people will cast the votes

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/09/who_are_alabamas_electors_in_t.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.96.24 (talk) 02:48, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, every little bit helps. --Robert Horning (talk) 12:14, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Reference methodology and preference
I'm using the following criteria and preference for obtaining sources for the information in this list:


 * 1) Official state filings and reports by the head state official for lists of electors
 * 2) Political Party websites disclosing electors
 * 3) Recognized media sources... generally considered "reputable news services" that would generally fit the Wikipedia definition of Reliable sources
 * 4) Any other possible source that even hints who might be an elector candidate if nothing else above can be found

The preference is in this order, although if some additional information about an elector can be found in a news media article, that reference should be included here has well. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

List of Texas Electors
An editorial dispute is happening here because it is claimed that the Texas electors is not found on that page. This is hard to find, because it is actually found in the spreadsheet under "2016 National Delegates". If you download that document, on "sheet 3" of that spreadsheet is a list of national committeemen (members of the RNC) and then for each congressional district what I must presume to be from congressional district conventions is the name of electors for each district... listed as presidential electors.

If we could find a much better source, it would be appreciated, but I've also been able to independently confirm that people on this particular list actually are current electors for the Republican Party this year. I'm not saying this list is complete (it is missing the at-large electors instead of just the ones for each congressional district), but far better than nothing at all and seems to be a reliable source so far as it does come from the official GOP website. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Seriously, you think national delegates are the electors? Delegates are the people that went to the convention, in the summer. They are different terms with different meanings. Earthscent (talk) 23:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Again.... did you look at the document? No, I'm not talking about the delegates, I'm talking about the electors who were nominated by the Texas Republican Party at the various local district and state conventions.  Like I said, it is in that same spreadsheet.... but on Sheet 3.... NOT SHEET 1.   I very much understand the difference between a delegate and an elector, and it is the electors that I've put down here, not the delegates.  Please check it out for yourself if you don't believe me.  It is the very same document that is the source I used for this list.  --Robert Horning (talk) 00:50, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think I have worked out how we can see the list of electors for the Texas Republican Party in the cited reference. The worksheet that we need to download is named "2016-National-Delegates-Alternates-Master-06.23.16.xlsx". But when I open that document using Excel, I just get to see "Sheet 1", which shows only the information on delegates, not electors, and there are no tabs at the bottom of the window to allow me to select a different sheet. It took some experimentation to find a solution; YMMV. What I did in Microsoft Office 365 is: (1) Open the worksheet. (2) Click on File, Options, Advanced. (3) Scroll down to "Display options for this workbook:". (4) Check the box next to "Show sheet tabs". (5) Click OK. The default tab is Sheet 1. The sheet with the electors' names is Sheet 2. NameIsRon (talk) 03:27, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a possible source for the Democratic Party electors for Texas. http://texasdemocraticconvention.com/convention-results/  Click SDEC Election Results. Download a copy and filter on the 2nd and 6th columns to find the electors. Avgjoetexas (talk) 20:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing out that list. There seems to be some flaws in the list with some duplicate names for the same district and too many electors for Texas, but it seems to be that the actual electors will be among that list.  At the very least, it will be useful to compare against any other list that might pop up.  --Robert Horning (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Who was elected
Do I see right, every elector is listed but not everyone will finally vote as his party didn't get enough votes. Where can I read who was elected? -- Bardnet (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:28, 10 November 2016 (UTC)


 * We are working on that! If you want to help identify the winning slate of electors, please help us in building Wikipedia, as stuff like what you are talking about comes from volunteers like you seeing a need and making it happen.  In this case though, I would recommend that we get some reliable sources before making any sort of proclamation on the topic.  After December 19th, the official elector ballots will become available from the various state election offices which will be the best primary source for getting this kind of information.  At the moment, all that is known is the names of the elector candidates along with perhaps projections from unofficial ballot results that have been discussed by major media sources.  --Robert Horning (talk) 16:52, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Delete this article
What_Wikipedia_is_not

JS (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose, If you wanted it to be deleted, why didn't you just go to WP:AfD? Also, we have other lists for 2012, 2008, etc., so why shouldn't we have this list? We also have lists for the first 2 presidential elections (1792 and 1796), but are very incomplete, so having these lists can be helpful for historical reference, and is an obviously notable topic.  03:36, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with this as well. If you want to argue that lists shouldn't be a part of Wikipedia, that belongs on Village pump (policy), but be aware that such a discussion is likely to turn out to be a perennial request that likely doesn't result in any sort of resolution with a major eruption of complaints if the idea gains any sort of traction.  An AfD would almost certainly result in a keep.... but I wouldn't mind seeing yet another article that I started have that fate happen.  I've had a 100% keep success rate with articles I've started on Wikipedia so far, including some surprisingly contentious AfDs that have shown up as well.  Bring it on if somebody really wants to see this deleted.  --Robert Horning (talk)

Strongly Oppose Particularly given that in this election cycle the GOP electors aren't merely wielding the proverbial rubber stamp, but are being heavily lobbied, they are certainly notable enough for Wikipedia. kencf0618 (talk) 20:15, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose Given the recent phenomena of US Presidential winners losing the popular vote, the electoral college information is particularly relevant today, and I feel that the historical record belongs in Wikipedia. It is especially relevant for the 2016 election where the number of "faithless" electors and resignations was unprecedented. There were at least 12 cases where a valid elector chose not to vote for their party's candidate. Two faithless Republican votes were allowed (plus one for Vice President). Five Democrat faithless votes were allowed. In two Republican cases where faithless votes were allowable, the electors chose to resign rather than either vote against their conscience or break faith. Three Democrat faithless votes were disallowed by their state, two being removed from office and replaced, the third changing his vote. This year's electoral college was historical, and the full membership should be available.Terr1959 (talk) 01:00, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Restructuring needed
On List of United States presidential electors, 2016, the places they are from are in capital letters and has the state's abbreviation even though it says "California" right on the section header. On List of United States presidential electors, 2016, they show the state abbreviation, and on Georgia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia have no entries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric0928 (talk • contribs) 03:51, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Some of the problem is the way that the information has been presented by the various state election boards. I agree that some sort of consistency ought to be enforced on this page, although my main objective so far in putting this together has mainly been one of simply gathering the information and worrying about the formatting for a later cleanup task.


 * Generally speaking, I've tried to avoid giving too much personal information about the electors as some states have actually published full contact information including phone numbers and street addresses. For myself, I don't think any of that is necessary for a list of this nature, but there are legitimate reasons to be listing the name of the city/town where the elector is from... particularly if they are made an elector because they represent a particular congressional district.  That is why I listed people like "Kathy McShan of Montgomery" in that manner.


 * If the state election board lists the name of the local state-level political party in a certain manner or phrase, like the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, I think that name should be kept as the name of the slate of electors. Such naming conventions should be sourced though and not arbitrarily given.  I've had a bit more of a problem deciding how to deal with independent candidates who are not a part of any given political party, where I think some consistency could be given as well.


 * For the most part though, I would encourage anybody here to simply Be Bold and make reasonable changes although asking if it looks good here on the talk page is encouraged. This page, as of when I'm writing this comment, is far from complete and really could use a whole lot of TLC to bring it up to a reasonable standard expected on Wikipedia.  I want to thank everybody reading this note and participating in this article for all of the largely thankless work you are putting into its development.  --Robert Horning (talk) 16:46, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I guess we can discuss this after the election.  01:35, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Now that the election is over
I would like to suggest that, at this point, this article list only the names of the electors who were actually elected in the 50 states and in the District of Columbia. A link could be included to the current version, which will effectively be an archived version, for individuals interested in seeing the names that were collected prior to the election.

In the event that the given electors have pages on Wikipedia, I would suggest linking those names to said articles.

Here is a listing by state of which party carried the election in that state.


 * Alabama - Republican Party
 * Alaska - Republican Party
 * Arizona - Republican Party
 * Arkansas - Republican Party
 * California - Democratic Party
 * Colorado - Democratic Party
 * Connecticut - Democratic Party
 * District of Columbia - Democratic Party
 * Delaware - Democratic Party
 * Florida - Republican Party
 * Georgia - Republican Party
 * Hawaii - Democratic Party
 * Idaho - Republican Party
 * Illinois - Democratic Party
 * Indiana - Republican Party
 * Iowa - Republican Party
 * Kansas - Republican Party
 * Kentucky - Republican Party
 * Louisiana - Republican Party
 * Maine - Democratic Party
 * Maryland - Democratic Party
 * Massachusetts - Democratic Party
 * Michigan - Republican Party
 * Minnesota - Democratic Party
 * Mississippi - Republican Party
 * Missouri - Republican Party
 * Montana - Republican Party
 * Nebraska - Republican Party
 * Nevada - Democratic Party
 * New Hampshire - Democratic Party
 * New Jersey - Democratic Party
 * New Mexico - Democratic Party
 * New York - Democratic Party
 * North Carolina - Republican Party
 * North Dakota - Republican Party
 * Ohio - Republican Party
 * Oklahoma - Republican Party
 * Oregon - Democratic Party
 * Pennsylvania - Republican Party
 * Rhode Island - Democratic Party
 * South Carolina - Republican Party
 * South Dakota - Republican Party
 * Tennessee - Republican Party
 * Texas - Republican Party
 * Utah - Republican Party
 * Vermont - Democratic Party
 * Virginia - Democratic Party
 * Washington - Democratic Party
 * West Virginia - Republican Party
 * Wisconsin - Republican Party
 * Wyoming - Republican Party
 * That suggestion seems appropriate; I checked the article for 2012, and in that case the article lists "electors ... who cast ballots to elect the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election." Two observations: (1) the list can only be complete and correct after the electors meet and cast their ballots in December; (2) the election results for Maine show 1 elector for Trump/Pence and 3 electors for Clinton/Kaine. Again, the article can be updated after December 19. NameIsRon (talk) 18:04, 12 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I would disagree that this should list only the electors who actually cast their ballots. As long as the information about the other slates are properly sourced and available, what is the reasoning for that information to be removed?  That the ones actually elected should be moved up prominently in the list of each state or moved to the top of the article with the other elector candidates moved toward the bottom might be reasonable though.  Wikipedia is not paper and there is a well defined scope of what can be included even by including other slates on this page.  If necessary, that can be split off into a completely separate article, but there is really no reason to be culling this kind of content completely and it clearly fits within the pillars of what is Wikipedia.


 * The actual electors won't be formally known until after December 19th though, so we have a little time to debate these changes. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Only the actual list of electors should remain in the article, not the individuals nominated (or selected) by their respective parties or candidates. This complete list of candidates fails on two levels. The first is that is is difficult to glance who is (or was) the actual electors, and two the article appears to fail WP:NPF (with regard for the candidates not selected as electors) and the general sense that these individuals are private figures, perhaps even more private than many local elected officials who are not presumed to be notable for holding a pubic office (see WP:POLOUTCOMES). While it may be presumed that the candidates from the major political parties are active in semi-public ways (see the notes about the individuals from the the article for 2012), a great majority of the electors in 2012 are not (or do not appear to be) party officers or elected officials. This may be especially true for third-party candidates (and their list of electors). My sense is that the privacy of the candidates be preserved, and the article edited to only contain those electors who vote on December 19. - --Enos733 (talk) 06:00, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The policy you are mentioning really only applies to creating new articles and not including a mere reference to that person in a list of this nature. It is similar in nature to listing competing minor party candidates in other election coverage.  Mind you, that information ought to be sourced.... as is all of the information currently listed right now.  That the list of people who didn't get elected ought to be moved down to the bottom and de-emphasized with those who actually were elected moved up in prominence on this article I would agree.  The largest problem with the 2012 article is mainly a lack of references and sources to perform this step, but fortunately those reliable sources can be cited here for this purpose at the moment.  --Robert Horning (talk) 23:01, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that this current version of this page should be preserved as the "Candidates for Presidential Elector, 2016" and the page itself reduced to just those 538 individuals who voted on December 19. Kjack1071 (talk) 01:24, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Which people get to cast the vote will be officially known as soon as each state certifies its vote. That will be well before December 19, if it hasn't happened already. JTRH (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The Electors were not all pledged, and even fewer were bound by penalty of State Law, to Individual Candidates
I'm a reluctant Election Law Specialist, but I must be clear, because I do not want to be misleading: I do not have a legal degree, this is not legal advice, and I can not offer professional legal advice.

This is a great article to work with and start from, but there's a glaring set of errors: many of these Electors weren't pledged to Donald Trump, but were pledged to the Republican Parties (State or National, and frankly, sometimes it's not clear to me in particular cases whether the binding is to the National Candidate or the State Republican Nominee, if they should ever differ.)

This distinction is incredibly important in some really critical scenarios. Just before the Selection of Electors, the head of the Republican Party Reince Priebus was begging Donald Trump to drop out of the race so that another Republican could be nominated and appointed Nominee in a flash. He refused, and threatened third-party candidacy, holding the Republican Party hostage in the Election.

Here's a wonderful summary of State Laws from the National Association of Secretaries of State that consolidates essentially all relevant State Laws on Electors and the mechanisms by which they are bound into one document: http://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2017-08/research-state-laws-pres-electors-nov16.pdf

State laws that bind Electors to the State Republican Party could have ballot-switched and ballot-synched very quickly in the days immediately after the Selection of Electors, if the National Party and State Parties had coordinated to do so. They could have bit back after being held hostage for the final weeks of the Campaign, and Trump's oft-repeated faithless threats to run as a third-party candidate, despite his acceptance of and signature on a binding pledge to support the Republican Nominee.

So let's go through and correct this article to show precisely, mechanically _how_ these Electors were pledged. The Republican Party could have thrown well over 100 delegates to "Dark Horse" exercising binding state laws as understood at the time, pushing Donald Trump to defend himself from insurgencies in the House and Senate. That they didn't even make an effort after asking for his resignation after the Access Hollywood Tape is quite astonishing, once they were in the clear past the November 8, 2016 Elector Selection hurdle, and free to throw enough sand to land the selection of the President (and optionally, the Vice-President) into the House and Senate, in defense of the country from, among other things, foreign aggression sponsoring any particular favored candidate and foreign policy portfolio for President.

(Strictly speaking, the State Party ought to be the assumed default, I presume, per States' Rights to recognize parties however they will, per Bush v Gore. But a Legislature's instant and immediate clarification would probably be treated with enormous deference, if there were ever a conflict and it were exercised, in reclaiming and exercising its plenary powers to settle these questions under State Law.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamtheclayman (talk • contribs) 22:12, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

South Dakota
According to the Republican Party Chairwoman Pam Roberts replaced Matt Michels. --Dandelo (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2020 (UTC)