Editing United States Electoral College (section)

===Evolution from unpledged to pledged electors===
Some Founding Fathers hoped that each elector would be elected by the citizens of a district<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://prospect.org/features/people-s-choice/|title=Not the People's Choice|first=Arthur Schlesinger|last=Jr|date=March 6, 2002|website=The American Prospect}}</ref> and that elector was to be free to ''analyze'' and ''deliberate'' regarding who is best suited to be president.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-TCPDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA124|title=Representation and the Electoral College|first=Robert M.|last=Alexander|date=April 1, 2019|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-093944-1 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

In [[Federalist No. 68]] Alexander Hamilton described the [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Fathers']] view of how electors would be chosen: {{blockquote|A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated [tasks]... They [the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)#Framers of the Constitution|framers of the constitution]]] have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men [i.e. Electors pledged to vote one way or another], who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes [i.e., to be told how to vote]; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons [Electors to the Electoral College] for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have EXCLUDED from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office [in other words, no one can be an Elector who is prejudiced toward the president]... Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias [Electors must not come to the Electoral College with bias]. Their transient existence, and their detached [unbiased] situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it."<ref name="Hamilton, Federalist 68">{{cite web|url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp|title=Federalist No. 68|publisher=The Avalon Project}}</ref>}}

However, when electors were pledged to vote for a specific candidate, the slate of electors chosen by the state were no longer free agents, independent thinkers, or deliberative representatives. They became, as Justice [[Robert H. Jackson]] wrote, "voluntary party lackeys and intellectual non-entities."<ref>Justice Robert Jackson, [https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/343/214 Ray v. Blair, dissent, 1952]</ref> According to Hamilton, writing in 1788, the selection of the president should be "made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station [of president]."<ref name="Hamilton, Federalist 68"/>

Hamilton stated that the electors were to ''analyze'' the list of potential presidents and select the best one. He also used the term "deliberate." In a 2020 opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, the court additionally cited [[John Jay]]'s view that the electors' choices would reflect "discretion and discernment."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/591/19-465/|title=Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. ___ (2020)|website=Justia Law}}</ref>
Reflecting on this original intention, a U.S. Senate report in 1826 critiqued the evolution of the system:

<blockquote>It was the intention of the Constitution that these electors should be an independent body of men, chosen by the people from among themselves, on account of their superior discernment, virtue, and information; and that this select body should be left to make the election ''according to their own will'', without the slightest control from the body of the people. That this intention has failed of its object in every election, is a fact of such universal notoriety that no one can dispute it. Electors, therefore, have not answered the design of their institution. They are not the independent body and superior characters which they were intended to be. They are not left to the exercise of their own judgment: on the contrary, they give their vote, or bind themselves to give it, according to the will of their constituents. They have degenerated into mere agents, in a case which requires no agency, and where the agent must be useless...<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llrd&fileName=003/llrd003.db&recNum=656|title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875|website=memory.loc.gov}}</ref></blockquote>

In 1833, Supreme Court Justice [[Joseph Story]] detailed how badly from the framers' intention the Electoral Process had been "subverted":

<blockquote>In no respect have the views of the framers of the constitution been so completely frustrated as relates to the independence of the electors in the electoral colleges. It is notorious, that the electors are now chosen wholly with reference to particular candidates, and are silently pledged to vote for them. Nay, upon some occasions the electors publicly pledge themselves to vote for a particular person; and thus, in effect, the whole foundation of the system, so elaborately constructed, is subverted.<ref name="auto12">{{Cite web|url=https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_2-3s11.html|title=Article 2, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3: Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1449—52, 1454—60, 1462—67|website=press-pubs.uchicago.edu}}</ref></blockquote>

Story observed that if an elector does what the framers of the Constitution expected him to do, he would be considered immoral:

<blockquote>So, that nothing is left to the electors after their choice, but to register votes, which are already pledged; and an exercise of an independent judgment would be treated, as a political usurpation, dishonorable to the individual, and a fraud upon his constituents.<ref name="auto12"/></blockquote>