Minn elector votes Edwards for president

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- A Minnesota presidential elector mistakenly wrote the name of vice presidential candidate John Edwards on his presidential ballot instead of John Kerry.

There was stunned silence after the announcement Edwards had gotten a vote for president, but none of the 10 electors volunteered they voted for Edwards as a protest, nor did anyone admit an error, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Tuesday.

The ballot for Edwards -- which actually read "Ewards" -- will take its place in U.S. presidential election history alongside that of the Democratic elector who in 1988 gave his presidential vote to running mate Lloyd Bentsen instead of Michael Dukakis and the Washington, D.C., elector who, in 2000, protested the city's lack of voting representation in the U.S. Congress by abstaining rather than cast her 2000 vote for former Vice President Al Gore.

At no time, however, has the outcome of the contest been turned by an elector who voted, either accidentally or purposefully, for a candidate other than the one to whom they were pledged.

The apparent error reduces Kerry's tally in the Electoral College from 252 votes to 251.