THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL PARTIES, AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS

1
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL
PARTIES, AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS

• Topics 36-39

2
The Executive Compromise The Electoral College

• Hamilton's assessment (Federalist 68) The mode
  of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the
  United States is almost the only part of the
  system, of any consequence, which has escaped
  without severe censure, or which has received the
  slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.
  . . . I venture somewhat further, and hesitate
  not to affirm that if the manner of it be not
  perfect, it is at least excellent.
• Many subsequent evaluations (and the many
  proposed constitutional amendments) suggest a
  less favorable assessment of this part of the
  Executive Compromise
• part of a generally elitist and anti-democratic
  constitution or
• a last-minute jerry-built compromise or
• a well designed compromise among diverse
  considerations, or possibly
• the embodiment of well-thought selection criteria.

3
The Electoral College Compromise

• In any event, the Executive Compromise
  established a selection system
• that was designed to operate in a non-partisan
  environment, but
• that was quickly transformed (by both political
  practice and constitutional amendment) to
  accommodate the political parties that formed
  almost immediately to contest Presidential
  selection.
• The menu of options
• selection by states
• selection by the National Legislature Congress
• the default option found in both VA and NJ
  plans
• selection by the people
• mixed systems
• first round (nomination)
• second round (election or runoff)
• intermediate electors

4
Article II, Section 1 (2-3)

• 2. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as
  the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of
  Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators
  and Representatives to which the State may be
  entitled in the Congress but no Senator or
  Representative, or Person holding an Office of
  Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be
  appointed an Elector.
• 3. The Electors shall meet in their respective
  States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of
  whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of
  the same State with themselves. And they shall
  make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of
  the Number of Votes for each which List they
  shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to
  the Seat of the Government of the United States,
  directed to the President of the Senate. The
  President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of
  the Senate and House of Representatives, open all
  the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be
  counted. The Person having the greatest Number of
  Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a
  Majority of the whole Number of Electors
  appointed and if there be more than one who have
  such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes,
  then the House of Representatives shall
  immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for
  President and if no Person have a Majority, then
  from the five highest on the list the said House
  shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in
  chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken
  by States, the Representation from each State
  having one Vote . . . , and a Majority of all
  the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In
  every Case, after the Choice of the President,
  the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of
  the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if
  there should remain two or more who have equal
  Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot
  the Vice President.

5
Electoral College Compromise (cont.)

• Use of intermediate electors
• allocated among states by total Congressional
  representation
• selection prescribed by state legislatures and
• to meet separately in state capitals.
• Voting system
• double vote system
• non-cumulative
• out-of-state requirement.
• Counting of electoral votes before joint session
  of Congress

6
Electoral College Compromise (cont.)

• Required Electoral College vote for election
• support from a majority of electors, and
• more than any other candidate.
• Otherwise election is thrown into the House
  the contingent procedure.
• House votes by state delegation (one state, one
  vote)
• from among the top five candidates if none has
  the required majority, or
• from among the tied candidates if both/all have
  required majority.
• Required vote for election in House
• majority of states, with
• repeated ballots until some candidate has
  majority support.
• Creation and selection of the office of Vice
  President
• the runner-up in presidential voting becomes Vice
  President.

7
The Electoral College An Example

• THE ORIGINAL ELECTORAL COLLEGE BEFORE THE 12th
  AMENDMENT AND USING THE PROVISIONAL PPORTIONMENT
  OF HOUSE SEATS
• House Size 65
• Number of Electors 65 2 13 91
• Number of Electoral Votes 2 91 182
• Maximum Vote Any Candidate Can Receive 91 (one
  vote from every elector)
• Required Majority 46 (one vote from a majority
  of electors)
• If no one gets 46 votes or if there is a tie
  among those who do
• Required Vote in House 7
• In any event, runner-up becomes Vice President
• Note these numbers were never actually used.

8
The Framers Expectations Concerning the
Electoral College

• Electors would typically be
• popularly elected
• from single-member districts (like House members,
  state legislators, and delegates to the state
  ratifying conventions).
• Electors would act as popular trustees of their
  states or districts.
• The contingent procedure would be used 19 times
  out of 20, so
• the big states would have the dominant role in
  nominating candidates, while
• the small states would have equal role in final
  election.
• These expectations did not anticipate the
  development of a national (two-) party system.
• Given that development, the double-vote
  runner-up-is-VP system turned out to be a big
  mistake.

9
The Election of 1789

• Provisional number of electoral votes 182
• Washington 69
• Adams 34
• Scattered 35
• Total 138
• RI NC (had not ratified) 20
• Electoral votes not cast 24
• Grand total 182
• Washington was elected unanimously in the sense
  that every elector who actually voted cast one of
  his two votes for Washington.
• Some feared that that New Englanders wanted to
  make Adams President by withholding votes from
  Washington, so they withhold votes from Adams.
• Washington forms a grand coalition cabinet,
  including
• Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State
• Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury

10
The Election of 1792

• Washington 132
• Adams 77
• Clinton 50
• Jefferson 4
• Burr 1
• Total no votes missing 264
• Washington was again elected unanimously.
• We see beginnings of the Federalist-Republican
  two-party system with respect to the second
  (Vice Presidential) votes.

11
The Election of 1796

• Thomas Jefferson found himself blocked in the
  Cabinet.
• He resigned and went to the country,
• He took the lead in forming a rudimentary
  political party to contest the next elections and
• in particular, to block Hamilton and his allies
  from taking control of the Presidency and
  Congress.
• The first contested Presidential election in
  1796
• Federalists John Adams (MA) Thomas Pickney
  (SC)
• Republicans Thomas Jefferson (VA) Aaron Burr
  (NY)
• The candidates were nominated by their respective
  Congressional Caucuses
• Note the regionally balanced tickets.
• Intra-Federalist maneuvering
• Hamilton (continued to Adams) unsuccessfully
  urged some Southern electors to vote for Pickney
  anybody but Adams
• However, some Northern electors learned this and
  withheld votes from Pickney (giving them to
  Ellsworth and others).

12
The Election of 1796 (cont.)

• The campaign moved from state to state.
• Different states selected their electors on
  different days.
• Different states used different methods of
  selecting electors.
• Both considerations could be manipulated for
  party advantage.
• The electoral vote outcome was very close
• Federalists won 71electors, all of whom voted for
  Adams, giving Adams the required majority of 70
  for election as President.
• Republicans won 68 electors, all of whom voted
  for Jefferson.
• Adams 71
• Jefferson 68
• Pickney 59
• Burr 30
• Scattered 48

13
The Election of 1796 (cont.)

• But the withholding of second votes from Pickney
  lowered his vote total to 59, dropping him to
  third place behind Jefferson, so
• the defeated Republican Presidential candidate
  became Vice President to the Federalist President
  Adams.
• Republican electors were even less resolute in
  following the party line in casting their
  second votes, so
• Burr got only 30 votes.
• All electors were expected to be pledged
  electors, i.e.,
• party delegates rather than popular trustees.
• Notably, Samuel Miles (Fed., PA) violated his
  pledge and voted for Jefferson rather than Adams.
• An angry Federalist supporter complained What,
  do I choose Samuel Miles to determine for me
  whether John Adams or Thomas shall be President?
  No! I choose him to act, not to think.

14
The Election of 1800

• Largely a repeat of 1796 (and a grudge match)
  with
• the same candidates,
• the same battle lines.
• However, the strategic implications of EC rules
  were better understood with respect to
• the danger of withholding votes and
• party advantage in manipulating the mode of
  selecting electors
• Madison to Monroe (1800) All agree that an
  election by districts would be best if it could
  be general, but while ten states choose either by
  their legislatures or by a general ticket so the
  dominant party wins all of a states electoral
  votes, it is folly or worse for the other six
  not to follow.

15
The Election of 1800 (cont.)

• 1800 was as close as 1796 but tipped the other
  way.
• Republicans won with 73 electors vs. 65 for
  Federalists.
• Jefferson 73
• Burr 73
• Adams 65
• Pickney 64
• Jay 1
• Since the Republicans failed to withhold one
  Vice Presidential electoral vote from Burr, the
  election was thrown into House to break the
  Jefferson-Burr tie.
• Note that one Federalist elector did withhold a
  vote from Pickney, so as to avoid a Adams-Pickney
  tie, in the event the Federalist won the most
  electors.
• The Republicans had also taken control of
  Congress.
• But the newly elected Congress would not convene
  until late in 1801. This timetable would not be
  changed until the 20th Amendment (1933).

16
The Election of 1800 (cont.)

• So the Presidential election was thrown into the
  lame duck House elected in 1798, which was
  still controlled by the Federalists.
• The House could choose only between the two tied
  candidates.
• Federalists mostly voted for Burr in order to
  deny Jefferson the presidency.
• Several state delegations were internally
  deadlocked and therefore could not cast a vote.
• The House deadlocked for 35 ballots.
• Ultimately, Hamilton let it be known he preferred
  Jefferson to Burr, and enough Federalists
  switched (or abstained) to end the deadlock on
  36th ballot.
• The Federalists could have used an even more
  hardball tactic both to both keep the election
  out of the House and Jefferson out of the
  Presidency
• The one Federalist electoral who withheld a vote
  from Pickney could have cast it for Burr instead
  than Jay.
• Then Burr would have be elected President (and
  Jefferson would have continued as Vice
  President).
• This was partisan background for the midnight
  appointments and Marbury v. Madison.

17
The 12th Amendment

• Political scientists now understand that
  single-winner elections (like a Presidential
  election) tend to produce two-candidate contests
  and two-party competition Duvergers Law,
  which the original Electoral College could not
  readily accommodate.
• Congress proposed, and the states quickly
  ratified (in time for 1804 election), the 12th
  Amendment.
• Electors cast separate votes for President and
  Vice President.
• The required electoral vote majority for
  President (and for Vice President) is a simple
  majority of votes cast ( number of electors).
• If no candidate receives the required majority
  for President, the House (still voting by state
  delegations) chooses from among the top three
  vs. top five candidates.
• If no candidate receives the required majority
  for Vice President, the Senate chooses from among
  the top two candidates.

18
The Transformation of the Electoral College

• By the 1830s, the Electoral College had been
  trans-formed into the kind of (essentially)
  automatic vote counting system we are familiar
  with today.
• Elements in this transformation
• pledged (and faithful) electors (largely in
  effect by 1796)
• the 12th Amendment (ratified by 1804)
• a nationwide Presidential election day
  established by Congress
• popular election of electors (almost universal by
  1832 and with much expanded electorates)
• election of electors on a general ticket (or a
  winner-take-all basis) rather than from
  districts and
• a two-party system that bypasses the House
  contingent election.
• On the last point, the election of 1824 was the
  exception that proved the rule.

19
The Election of 1824

• After 1800, the Federalist Party never regained
  control of either the Presidency or of Congress.
• The dominant Jeffersonian party began calling
  itself the Democratic-Republican Party.
• In 1820, President Monroe (Dem.-Rep.) was
  re-elected without any Federalist opposition.
• In 1824, the Dem.-Rep. Congressional Caucus
  nominated Secretary of the Treasury William
  Crawford.
• However, other ambitious (Dem.-Rep.) Presidential
  candidates saw no reason not to enter the
  Presidential election.
• Previously they would have been deterred by the
  prospect of splitting the Democratic-Republican
  party and thereby throwing the election to the
  nominee of the Federalist party.
• But now there was no Federalist party.
• Lesson given two parties contesting
  single-winner elections, if one party disappears
  the surviving party splits into rival factions in
  due course creating a new two-party system.

20
The Election of 1824 (cont.)

• The four candidates were
• John Quincy Adams (Secretary of State)
• Henry Clay (U.S. Representative and former
  Speaker)
• William Crawford (Secretary of the Treasury)
• Andrew Jackson (hero of the Battle of New Orleans
  and representative of the common man)
• Presidential election results
• Electoral Vote Popular
  Vote
• Jackson 99 41
• Adams 84 31
• Crawford 41 11
• Clay 37 13
• Others 0
  4
• Bear in mind that six states still appointed
  electors and that states that used popular
  election varied considerably with respect to the
  extent of the franchise.

21
The Election of 1824 (cont.)

• The plausible compromise candidate Clay was
  squeezed out of third place in the electoral vote
  ranking by Crawford.
• Under the 12th Amendment, the House could chose
  only from among top three candidates (in terms of
  electoral votes).
• Clay probably would have been elected president
• if the House could still chose among the top five
  candidates or
• if Crawford had not been a candidate (Crawford
  was a spoiler to Clay).
• Clay had great influence in the House.
• He detested Jackson and endorsed Adams.
• Adams (just) won on the first ballot (24 state
  delegations)
• Adams 13
• Jackson 7
• Crawford 4
• Adams subsequently appointed Clay Secretary of
  State.
• Jackson and his supporters denounced an alleged
  corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay.

22
Consequences of the1824 Election

• As political scientists would expect, the
  factionalized Democratic-Republicans split into
  two rival political parties.
• Adams and Clay formed the new National Republican
  Party, which evolved into the Whig Party.
• Jackson formed the new Democratic Party.
• Two-party competition has been sustained ever
  since,
• though with temporary splits in one or other
  party in individual elections.
• No subsequent election has been thrown into the
  House.
• Prior to the 1825 contingent election, the House
  adopted special rules for its conduct.
• These rules remain in effect and would
  (presumably) by used in any future House election.

23
Party Presidential Nominations

• The Congressional Caucus (1796-1820)
• Collapse of the caucus (1824)
• The invention of the party national nominating
  convention (1832)
• State parties send delegations to a national
  convention to nominate a Presidential-Vice
  Presidential ticket and adopt a platform
• The party-dominant system (1832-1908)
• Delegates and their votes are controlled by state
  and/or local party "bosses."
• Strategic implications for ambitious Presidential
  candidates there is only an insider strategy
  for seeking party nomination
• court favor with party bosses and
• expect multi-ballot conventions, with deal-making
  between ballots.

24
Presidential Nominations (cont.)

• The mixed system (1912-1968)
• the introduction of Presidential primaries
• plus national mass media etc.
• Strategic implications there are now both
  "insider" vs. "outsider" strategies available
  and
• even outsider candidates can pick and chose
  which primaries to enter
• Unless one outsider candidate sweeps the field,
  multi-ballot conventions (and deal-making) are
  still likely.
• The candidate-dominant system (1972-present)
• Proliferation of primaries (and open caucuses,
  e.g., Iowa)
• Strategic implications now there is only an
  outsider strategy available, requiring
• early entry
• contesting primaries everywhere (and therefore
  lots of )
• one-ballot ratifying conventions.
• Frontloading of primaries, but after 2008
  Democratic contest frontloading looks less
  appealing.

25
Effective Presidential Selection

• Democratizing the Presidential selection system
  has pushed effective selection earlier and
  earlier.
• Who will be the next President?
• House election 19 times out of 20
  Jan. 6
• Electoral Votes two-party system
  Dec. 15
• Selection of electors pledged electors
  Nov. 5
• Who will be the party nominees?
• Conventions party-dominant system
  July-Aug.
• Later primaries mixed system Late
  spring
• Early primaries candidate-dom. system
  Winter
• except Dems 2008 (and Reps 1976)