Electoral College First Years in the United States
History of the Electoral College: First Years of the Electoral College
Introduction to Electoral College First Years
Under the new scheme, each state was permitted to appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” as the Constitution spelled out in Article II, Section 1. Because delegates to the Constitutional Convention were so deeply divided on how the president should be chosen, the framers decided not to require the states to follow a given method of selection. Instead they chose to give the states broad discretion in deciding how to appoint electors. The whole matter “was entrusted to the State Legislatures,” Charles Pinckney said in 1800. “[T]hey must make provisions for all questions arising on the occasion.”
During the first several presidential elections, state legislatures settled upon three principal modes of selection. The first was selection of electors by the state legislature itself. Most state legislatures appointed presidential electors in this manner in the first three presidential elections. A second technique was the so-called district system, in which electors were selected by popular elections held in each congressional district of a state. (Madison believed at the time of the Constitutional Convention that this would be the most common method of selecting electors, but it soon became rare.) The third approach was the winner-take-all, or “general ticket,” system. Under it, a popular election was held statewide in which every qualified voter participated in determining the electors selected.
As early as 1804 most of the state legislatures instituted the direct, popular election of presidential electors, and their methods of voting were about evenly divided between statewide, winner-take-all, and district voting. As voting rights in the United States broadened after 1800 and the electorate began to exercise greater political influence, more and more states adopted popular selection of electors. In those states with popular selection, voting by district became less and less frequent. By 1836 all the states except South Carolina selected their electors by statewide popular vote. (South Carolina continued to choose its electors through the state legislature until 1868.)” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Electoral College First Years in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to Electoral College First Years
In this Section
Voting Rights, Voter Participation, Election Redistricting, Electoral College (including Electoral College Selection, Counting the Votes, Electoral College Origins, Electoral College First Years, Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment, Disputed Elections of 1824 and 1876, Electoral College and the Influence of Political Parties, Winner-Take-All System, Debate Over the Electoral College and Electoral College Reform), Electorate Age and Electorate Constitutional Provisions.