Four D.C. gays named as presidential electors

Two gay Republicans and two gay Libertarians have been named by their parties to serve as presidential electors in D.C. under the Electoral College system. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Two gay Republicans and two gay Libertarian Party members have been named by their respective parties to serve as presidential electors in the District of Columbia under the Electoral College system established by the U.S. Constitution.

The D.C. Republican Committee named its chairman, gay Republican activist Robert Kabel, and one of its members, gay Republican Jose Cunningham, as two of D.C.’s three electors pledged to vote for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The D.C. Libertarian Party named gay Libertarian activist Bruce Majors and gay conservative advocate Christopher Barron as two of the city’s three electors pledged to vote for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico.

Majors is also running as a Libertarian Party candidate against Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) in the Nov. 6 election. Barron is co-founder and a current board member of the gay conservative group GOProud, which has endorsed Romney for president.

Kabel, a former board chair of Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay Republican group, said the Romney campaign vetted and approved his and Cunningham’s appointment as Romney electors.

Kabel served as a Romney delegate and Cunningham served as a Romney alternate delegate at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., last month.

The D.C. Democratic Party selected its own three electors to vote in the Electoral College in December on behalf of President Obama, who is considered the odds on favorite to win the popular vote in D.C. The D.C. Democratic Party named City Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), attorney and longtime Democratic Party activist Don Dinan, and former City Council member William Lightfoot (D-At-Large) to serve as Obama electors.

Under the electoral college system, as practiced in most states and D.C., the presidential candidate winning the popular vote in a state or D.C. is entitled to the send the electors selected by his party on his behalf to the U.S. Capital to cast their vote for president. The Electoral College traditionally has voted on the Monday following the second Wednesday of December in a presidential election year.