Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment in the United States
History of the Electoral College: The 12th Amendment Alters the System
Introduction to Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment
Under the original Constitution, electors did not vote separately for president and vice president as they do today. They simply cast two votes without distinguishing between president and vice president. When the votes were counted, the framers of the Constitution expected that the runner-up was to be vice president. They failed to realize that two candidates could end up with an equal number of votes. In fact the Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton realized that a tie was possible, and in the first election of 1789 he advised electors in various states to vote for George Washington for president but not for John Adams for vice president. No problems arose in the election of 1789 or in the election of 1792, even though the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties had begun to coalesce and the political process was becoming increasingly partisan.
By 1800, however, the early unanimity surrounding George Washington’s presidency had long since broken down. The Democratic-Republican Party (the forerunner of today’s Democratic Party) ran Thomas Jefferson as its presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as its vice presidential candidate. But an equal number of electors voted for both Jefferson and Burr. As provided by the Constitution, the election was thus thrown into the House of Representatives where each of the states then in existence had one vote. The House had to vote 36 times, casting ballots over a period of six days, before Jefferson finally received a majority of the votes. Ten states voted for Jefferson and four states voted for Burr. Burr, finishing second, became vice president.
Clearly, the system had to be changed. If all electors from the same party voted for the same two individuals, a tie would result. The election would end up in the House, raising the possibility of an inverted result in which the person intended to be president became vice president, and vice versa. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution successfully remedied this problem. The amendment required electors to vote separately for presidential and vice presidential candidates.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment
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.