Despite “efforts” (which likely had no effect other than on dems in WA state that voted for Collin Powell) only 2 Trump electors didn’t vote for him, both in Texas (one was a Paulbot who was clearly gonna vote for Ron Paul no matter what, the other was a never Trumper who needed no convincing).
Even this can be eliminated through slightly more careful elector selection.
A third elector tried in Michigan but that state has a neat law that says trying to vote for someone you aren’t pledged to that results is an automatic resignation and the remaining electors vote for a replacement. As I understand it, it’s perfectly ok for states to do that, or to fine electors who are faithless, but can’t actually stop them from voting however they please (except by the Michigan way of removing them before they do)
Dead nominees should obviously be an exception, indeed Congress refused to count votes cast for the dead Horace Greeley in 1872, voting for a dead man is absurd.
What if the Maine Trump Elector tried voting for someone else? Who would have tried to replaced him?
The COLORADO case involved Hillary electors who voted for, or wanted to vote for, Kasich. Baca was replaced.
“Dead nominees should obviously be an exception, indeed Congress refused to count votes cast for the dead Horace Greeley in 1872, voting for a dead man is absurd.”
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I disagree with you here.
When Horace Greeley, who ran for president as a fusion candidate of the Democrat and “Liberal Republican” parties, died after the 1872 election but before the Electoral College met, the presidential electors who had been elected on his ticket had little time to decide for whom to cast the presidential and vice presidential electoral votes that they had pledged to cast for Greeley and Gratz Brown. A majority of them cast their electoral votes for Indiana’s governor-elect Thomas Hendricks for president and Brown for VP; most others voted for Brown for president and a scattering of names (often “native sons”) for VP. (Only one elector pledged to the Greeley-Brown ticket did not vote for Brown: A Missouri elector cast his votes for SCOTUS Justice David Davis (who had sought the Liberal Republican presidential nomination without resigning from the Court) for president and former Democrat OH Congressman William Groesbeck (who was the presidential nominee of a rogue Liberal Republican Party convention that opposed Greeley) for vice president.) But three electors from GA cast their votes for Greeley and Brown, just as they originally had pledged to do, despite Greeley having died before they cast their electoral votes.
Elecoral votes are counted by Congress in a joint session of the House and Senate. When it was revealed that Greeley had received three EVs, each house voted separately on whether to count such votes. One house (I forget which) voted to count them, but the other house ruled that since Greeley was dead he no longer was eligible for the presidency and that such votes should not be counted. Under the rules for counting electoral votes at the time (which I believe remain unchanged as to such point), both houses needed to agree to count electoral votes cast for them to count officially, which is why the three EVs for Greeley were not counted. IMHO, not counting votes cast for dead presidential or VP candidates was an unwise and dangerous precedent that I hope is reverted at a future election in which counting then won’t have any bearing on the results. Could you imagine what would happen if, say, Trump and Pence are reelected, the Electoral College votes Trump 300, Biden 234 and Bernie Sanders 1, and then President Trump was assassinated during the period between the Electoral College meeting and Congress counting the votes? If the 1872 precedent were followed and the EVs cast for Trump were not counted, the results would be Biden 234 and Sanders 1, with the House of Representatives having to elect a president *choosing only between Biden and Sanders*. That would be the most undemocratic and illegitimate result conceivable: Instead of having a President Pence after noon on January 20, 2021, America would have a President Biden or a President Sanders.
As I said before, I really hope that Congress has the opportunity to overturn that 1872 precedent in an election where it would not matter (had one of those brain-dead faithless electors from 2016 cast a protest vote for the late Barbara Jordan or some other dead person it would have been a perfect opportunity for Congress to count the vote and bury that precedent), given that if sonething like the hypothetical that I describe above were to occur it would be unlikely that both houses would do the right thing and count the EVs cast for a dead candidate when not doing so would result in someone from their party becoming president.
By counting votes cast for a dead person, it would permit such person to become (posthumously) president-elect, and when noon on January 20 rolls around, it would create a vacancy that would be filled immediately by the VP-elect, who first would take the oath of office as VP one minute and the next minute would take the oath of office as president (not as “acting president,” given that the vacancy would be permanent, not temporary), and the new president would be able to nominate a new VP (subject to confirmation from both houses of Congress) to fill the vacancy created by his succession to the presidency. The result would be the same as what would have occurred had the president-elect died after having become president, so the will of the voters would have been respected.
That being said, I agree that it would be stupid for a presudential elector knowingly to vote for someone who is dead, and were tragedy to strike prior to the Electoral College meeting there should be a conference call among all electors pledged to the dead candidate so that electors can decide for whom they will be voting. The same thing, by the way, could be done if, say, a presidential or vice presidential nominee has an incapacitating health event or is discovered to be a crook or a traitor after Election Day but before the Electoral College meets.