During the presidential general election, voters are technically selecting slates of candidates committed to voting for their party’s presidential ticket. The only other reform impacting the Electoral College was the granting of electoral votes to the District of Columbia under the 23rd Amendment in 1961. Those extra three are for Washington, DC. Some claim that the founding fathers chose the Electoral College over direct election in order to balance the interests of high-population and low-population states. An objection needs to be signed by a member of each body and approved by both bodies to invalidate votes. But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between the north and the south, and between the coasts and the interior. Each elector’s sole constitutional duty is to vote for president and vice president. Supporters of electoral reform argue that the Electoral College does not reflect the will of American voters.

The Electoral College is composed of 538 electors whose votes have the final say on who becomes the president of the United States. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency. From 1787 to 1836, a majority of states asked their legislatures to allocate electoral votes. This objection rang true in the 1780s, when life was far more local. A fifth election – 1824 – featured a winner selected by Congress who did not win the popular or electoral vote. The amendment’s modifications of the electoral process transformed the Framers’ framework, enabling future presidential elections to be openly populist and partisan affairs featuring two competing tickets. Hayes and Tilden electoral votes from these three states were submitted to Congress. Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. $�� The former British colonists did not want an American monarchy. This change in electoral votes also solidified the concept of presidential tickets for future elections. A joint session of Congress meets on January 6 following the presidential election to review and certify electoral votes. Article 2, Section 1 required the House of Representatives to break electoral ties by taking votes of each state delegation. What Is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact? As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves. The number of electors grew over time as new states were added and growing populations led to more congressional districts. There has been at least one faithless elector in 21 presidential election with no prosecutions under faithless elector laws. h�b```�:�7� �aB���00jm`h�`h�� >(f`�� ����������q�]�ی?w1lY��a%X +��T ���0�F�p�(#@� ��h As Americans await the quadrennial running of the presidential obstacle course now known as the Electoral College, it’s worth remembering why we have this odd political contraption in the first place. Each state has as many "electors" in the Electoral College as it has Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors. Established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President of the United States. 2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map. %%EOF But the early emergence of national presidential parties rendered the objection obsolete by linking presidential candidates to slates of local candidates and national platforms, which explained to voters who stood for what. The 12th Amendment was passed and ratified in six months as state and federal legislators saw potential damage to American government from repeats of 1800. 65 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<6325B581D0D80E4ABB0C2D7D73FBA0B2><4A9180D3E6CF404087265A22872F2C64>]/Index[49 22]/Info 48 0 R/Length 85/Prev 83813/Root 50 0 R/Size 71/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream It is the 12th Amendment’s Electoral College system, not the Philadelphia Framers’, that remains in place today. In 1796, political adversaries John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were elected as president and vice president based on the original electoral system. The congressional vote went to runner-up John Quincy Adams, infuriating Jackson and his supporters and leading to a contentious presidential election in 1828. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. The amendment ratified in 1804 requires Electoral College voters to cast separate ballots for president and vice president.

In that election, two rudimentary presidential parties—Federalists led by John Adams and Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson—took shape and squared off. 0 Enter the 12th Amendment, which allowed each party to designate one candidate for president and a separate candidate for vice president. Reformers also suggest that changing demographics create a gulf between the voice of voters and Electoral College math. But how do millions of votes across the country turn into 538 electoral votes? endstream endobj 50 0 obj <. Which States Split Their Electoral Votes? But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. A split between popular vote and electoral vote took place in 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. 49 0 obj <> endobj The term Electoral College has been used since because Madison referred to a “college” of electors during constitutional deliberations.

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