Update: Iowan resigns as elector after pledging vote for Paul

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Des Moines Register:

Some Republican electors say they may not support their party’s presidential ticket when the Electoral College meets in December to formally elect the next president, escalating tensions within the GOP and adding a fresh layer of intrigue to the final weeks of the White House race.

 

The electors — all supporters of former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul — told the Associated Press they are exploring options should Mitt Romney win their states.

Iowa is among states where electors are not bound by state law to cast their votes for a specific candidate. Most of Iowa’s six GOP electors told The Des Moines Register on Thursday that they back Romney.

But after an AP report was published Thursday quoting Melinda Wadsley saying she planned to cast her ballot for Paul, Republican Party of Iowa officials had words with her, and she resigned later that day.

 

Wadsley, an Iowa mother of three who was selected as a Republican elector at a district convention, had told the AP: “They’ve never given Ron Paul a fair shot, and I’m disgusted with that. I’d like to show them how disgusted I am.”

 

Iowa GOP chairman said the state central committee will start the process of replacing Wadsley.

 

 

The defection of multiple electors would be unprecedented in the last 116 years of U.S. politics. It also would raise the remote possibility that the country could even end up with a president and vice president from different parties.

 

If Romney prevailed in an extremely close presidential election, for example, defections could deprive him of the Electoral College majority needed to secure the presidency.

 

That would throw the presidential election to the U.S. House for the first time in nearly two centuries.

 

The Senate would elect the vice president if neither running mate got a majority of the electoral votes.

 

If Republicans retained control of the House, and with the each state delegation getting a single vote, Romney probably would prevail. But if the Senate remained in Democratic hands, Vice President Joe Biden would be the favorite.

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President Biden? God help us...