member_of_political_party margarette leach
West Virginia is a state located in the Appalachian region of the Southern United States . It is bordered by Virginia to the southeast , Kentucky to the southwest , Ohio to the northwest , Pennsylvania to the north ( and , slightly , east ), and Maryland to the northeast . West Virginia is the 41st largest by area , the 38th most populous , and has the second lowest household income of the 50 United States . The capital and largest city is Charleston . Kentucky , officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky , is a state located in the east south - central region of the United States . Kentucky is one of four U . S . states constituted as a commonwealth ( the others being Virginia , Pennsylvania , and Massachusetts ). Originally a part of Virginia , in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the ___MASK72___ . Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States . Margarette Faye Riggins Leach ( December 4 , 1926 -- December 23 , 2007 ) was a United States Democratic politician from West Virginia , best known for being a faithless elector during 1988 United States presidential election . She pledged to vote for Michael Dukakis for President of the United States and Lloyd Bentsen for Vice President of the United States . However , she cast her vote for Bentsen as President and Dukakis as Vice President as a form of protest against the electoral college ' s winner - take - all system . Leach was later a seven - term member of the West Virginia House of Delegates , representing the 15th district . She won the Democratic primary for an additional term , but lost the general election in 2006 . Leach died December 23 , 2007 . In United States presidential elections , an unpledged elector is a person nominated to stand as an elector but who has not pledged to support any particular presidential or vice presidential candidate , and is free to vote for any candidate when elected a member of the Electoral College . Presidential elections are indirect , with voters in each state choosing electors on Election Day in November , and these electors choosing the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States in December . Electors today are elected in every state by popular vote , and in practice have since the 19th century almost always agreed in advance to vote for a particular candidate  that is , they are said to have been " pledged " to that candidate . In the 20th century , however , several elections were contested by unpledged electors , who made no pledge to any candidate before the election . These anomalies largely arose over fissures within the ___MASK11___ over the issues of civil rights and segregation . There have been no unpledged electors in the Electoral College since 1960 , and no serious general election campaign has been mounted to elect unpledged electors in any state since 1964 . In United States presidential elections , a faithless elector is a member of the United States Electoral College who does not vote for the presidential or vice - presidential candidate for whom they had pledged to vote . That is , they break faith with the candidate they were pledged to and vote for another candidate , or fail to vote . A pledged elector is only considered a faithless elector by breaking their pledge ; unpledged electors have no pledge to break .