Lloyd W. Bailey

Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey is a physician and ophthalmologist, now retired, from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, who achieved notoriety during the 1968 U.S. presidential election when he became the sixth faithless elector in the history of the United States Electoral College.cite web
url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838856,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
title=Reminder for Reform
format=
work=TIME Magazine
publisher=
date=1969-01-17
accessdate= 2008-05-17]

A Republican-pledged elector, Bailey cast his vote for American Independent Party presidential nominee George Wallace and his running-mate Curtis LeMay, instead of for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who had carried his state. Wallace and LeMay won elections in five states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi)cite web |url=http://www.multied.com/elections/1968state.html |title=Presidential Election 1968 States Carried |format= |work=United States Presidential Elections |publisher=HistoryCentral.com |accessdate= 2008-05-17] with their 45 electoral votes and Bailey's vote gave them a total of 46 electoral votes.

Bailey at first claimed that when he was chosen as an elector by state party convention he had not pledged to cast his vote for Nixon. Bailey further claimed that since Wallace had won in the district he represented, he was obligated to cast his vote for Wallace. He also claimed that he forgot all about it until a party official reminded him of his electoral duties.cite web
url=http://www.avagara.com/e_c/ec_unfaithful.htm#Bailey
title=Tales of the Unfaithful Electors: Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey
format=
work=EC: The US Electoral College Web Zine
publisher=
date=
accessdate= 2008-05-17]

Bailey, a staunch conservative and a member of John Birch Society, later admitted that he did not vote for Nixon because the President-elect had announced his intention to appointment Henry Kissinger and Daniel Patrick Moynihan government positions, and had asked Chief Justice Earl Warren to stay in office through the end of June 1969. Bailey stated that if altering his vote would have changed the outcome of the election he would not have done it, and that his vote for Wallace was simply a protest. He became known as a "protest elector".

Due to Bailey's actions some members of Congress, most notably Senator Edmund Muskiecite web
url=http://abacus.bates.edu/Library/aboutladd/departments/special/ajcr/1969/Faithless%20Elector%20Announcement.shtml
title=Challenge to the Faithless Elector
format=
work=Congressional Record (Senate)
publisher=
pages=p.9
date=1969-01-03
accessdate= 2008-05-18] of Maine (a defeated Democratic Vice Presidential nominee) and Representative James O'Hara of Michigan tried to invoke a 1887 statute under which both houses of the United States Congress may reject any vote by an elector that has not been "regularly given." However, the motion was defeated. Bailey himself appeared at congressional hearings regarding this case.

Bailey's actions prompted calls for reform of the system. Polls at the time showed that the vast majority of Americans, over 70%, would support replacing the Electoral College with popular, direct voting as advocated by Birch Bayh, or retaining electoral votes without electors themselves, as proposed by Hale Boggs.

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