ABSTRACT
Close elections in previous years had also been accompanied by lobbying efforts aimed at electors. Alexander Hamilton then suggested that lobbying the Electoral College would be fruitless because electors would be both beyond reproach and physically difficult to contact. Although these lobbying efforts received little scholarly attention, they were surprisingly substantial. As expected, swing state Republican electors were the most frequent targets of lobbying efforts. Whether a state regulates an elector's vote or not, did not appear to affect the amount of lobbying activity experienced in the states. Assessing the effectiveness of these lobbying campaigns is difficult. On the one hand, these campaigns have not resulted in mass defections among presidential electors. The significant amount of elector lobbying and the relatively large number of electors who considered defecting reveal that beneath the surface of the Electoral College another campaign to secure votes exists.
