In 1912, James Sherman, the Republican candidate for Vice-President (and the incumbent Vice-President under William Howard Taft) died on October 30 of kidney disease, a few days before the general election on November 5. The Republican National Committee scheduled a meeting to be held after the general election, on November 12, to select a successor, and Sherman's name remained on the ticket for the general election. The Republicans lost, however (the Democratic ticket of Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Marshall won), and decided on November 8 not to meet as they had planned because voters only chose eight Republican electors, in Vermont and Utah. These electors did meet later, however, and, acting without instructions from the RNC, voted to replace Sherman's name on the ticket with that of Columbia University President Nicholas Butler of New York. This was a purely formal act with no practical consequences for the election.