Electoral College

Electoral College. The framers of the Constitution, after rejecting proposals to have the president elected by Congress or by popular vote, contrived a novel and intricate alternative. Each state would appoint electors equal in number to its representation in Congress. On a specified day, the electors would meet in their respective states (not in a national “electoral college”) and each would vote for two individuals for president. The compiled vote would be counted by the president of the Senate in the presence of the two houses of Congress. The candidate with the greatest number of votes (provided this constituted a majority) would become president. The person with the second highest vote would be vice president. If no individual obtained a majority, the Constitution provided for a contingent election by the House of Representatives, with each state delegation casting a single vote. Such elections occurred in 1801 and 1825.

The framers believed that they had designed a procedure that would be immune to politicization, but the rise of political parties by the late 1790s destroyed that illusion. The electors, rather than acting independently, now voted on the basis of their party affiliations. It then became apparent that if all the electors of the majority party voted for the same two persons, the result would be a tie and the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives. To address this problem, the Twelfth Amendment was adopted in 1804. It required that the electors designate one of their two votes for president and the other for vice president. This amendment proved crucial to the maintenance of the two‐party system.

Until 1824, electors were chosen in most states either by the legislature or by popular vote within districts. Least common, initially, was the general‐ticket mode, in which party‐nominated slates of electors were presented to the voters, thus enabling the majority party to win all of a state's electoral vote. This “winner‐take‐all” plan gained in favor and was adopted by 1836 in all states except South Carolina, which did not fall into line until 1868.

The late twentieth century saw support for abolishing the Electoral College, but opponents of such change warned that it would violate the “federative principle” in the Constitution. Criticism of the Electoral College increased, however, after the 2000 election, in which Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote, but Republican George W. Bush, after a fierce legal battle of the Florida outcome, carried the Electoral College.
See also Constitutional Convention of 1787; Early Republic, Era of the; Federal Government, Executive Branch: Overview; Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Federal Government, Legislative Branch.

Bibliography

Neil R. Pierce and and Lawrence D. Longley , The People's President: The Electoral College in American History and the Direct Vote Alternative, rev. ed., 1981.

Richard P. McCormick