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1804 and the Electoral College - 10/22/2008 1:22:14 PM

BlackPhx

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In 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr ran together for the offices of President and Vice President. The Constitution had not anticipated party politics, but rather called for every elector to cast 2 ballots for president, and awarded the presidency to the winner and the vice presidency to the second place finisher.

After Republicans cast their ballots for Jefferson and Burr, Burr correctly claimed that he and Jefferson had achieved a tie, and that the president must now be determined by the House of Representatives. The House eventually chose Jefferson, after Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton, who had been a bitter rival of both Jefferson and Burr, intervened to allow Jefferson to defeat Burr.

In 1804 the 12th Amendment was passed to amend the Constitution to match the new reality of party politics and national tickets. Electors now cast one vote for president and one for vice president. In the case of a tie, the state delegations to the House of Representatives would each cast one vote for president, and the Senate would elect the vice president.
By 1824 the Federalist party had largely disappeared and the Democratic-Republican party splintered and had 4 candidates running for president. Andrew Jackson won the most votes but did not achieve a majority of the electoral votes. The state delegations in the House of Representatives then elected John Quincy Adams as president.
Oddly enough it has evolved further and the difference now is the Candidate for President selects his own choice for VP within his party, and the Electoral College votes for one or the other Presidential Candidate along the lines (some states mandate it) of the popular vote (though in states that don't, the votes can be cast for the representatives choice).

Maybe we need to repeal that amendment and allow the runner up to move into the Vice Presidents position, that way everyone could be happy or ticked off equally.you would have two candidates people felt capable in the top position, both lending their experience and skills.
Just a wild thought running loose
poenkitten

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/22/2008 4:10:20 PM

Irishknight

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I believe that we should get to vote for pres and vice seperately. The party candidate can nominate his choice of vp but then the people get to decide.

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/22/2008 4:21:46 PM

MstrPBK

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The Electoral College was never intended to last this long. It was designed by the founding fathers to bring back to Independence Hall (in Philadelphia) the consensus of the Presidential vote from each of the US states. The process at that time could take not hours or days; but weeks or months to gather the final registration of the vote of the election (this is why we have to two months between the election and the oath of office for the President).

The Electoral College should just be abolished because we now have the technology to tally the vote in hours.

MstrPBK
St. Paul, MN

< Message edited by MstrPBK -- 10/22/2008 4:23:09 PM >

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/22/2008 6:44:17 PM

Irishknight

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PBK, you are right. Sadly, we won't get congress to approve that measure any time soon. We might get them to modify it and take the first baby steps to our votes actually counting.

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/22/2008 8:51:40 PM

Roselaure

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I have no problem in theory with the abolition of the Electoral College, but it would be an administrative nightmare. Right now there is no such thing as a national election in the US, just 50 state elections. So there would have to be a whole body of law to administer it, probably expand the power of the FEC, essentially a whole new bureaucracy.

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/24/2008 7:36:15 PM

Cagey18

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Actually there's a simpler solution that requires neither an act of Congress nor a whole new bureaucracy. If individual state legislatures adopt the approach of Nebraska and Maine (to date, this has been proposed in three other states IIRC)--namely, to award electoral votes by district rather than winner-take-all--the Electoral College would be effectively abolished (or bypassed, if you will).

This would subdivide the 50 states' votes into 438 districts (which already exist), and get us much closer to a popular vote. Networks would no longer award (at the moment the polls close) New York's 31 electoral votes to the Democrats, Texas' 34 electoral votes to the Republicans, and California's 55 electoral votes to the Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Congressional_District_Method

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/24/2008 7:57:42 PM

Roselaure

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Cagey18

Actually there's a simpler solution that requires neither an act of Congress nor a whole new bureaucracy. If individual state legislatures adopt the approach of Nebraska and Maine (to date, this has been proposed in three other states IIRC)--namely, to award electoral votes by district rather than winner-take-all--the Electoral College would be effectively abolished (or bypassed, if you will).

This would subdivide the 50 states' votes into 438 districts (which already exist), and get us much closer to a popular vote. Networks would no longer award (at the moment the polls close) New York's 31 electoral votes to the Democrats, Texas' 34 electoral votes to the Republicans, and California's 55 electoral votes to the Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Congressional_District_Method

That would work, although I'm not sure I'd characterize every state legislature agreeing to do the same thing as "simpler".

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/24/2008 9:22:21 PM

DedicatedDom40

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Cagey18

This would subdivide the 50 states' votes into 438 districts (which already exist), and get us much closer to a popular vote.

The trouble with this approach is those district lines are not nearly as unmovable at state boundaries. They have this history of always getting changed to benefit the tenure of the incumbant and this keeps his party in control.

Already, the gerrymandering of districts has basically made the primaries the real elections for most voters, since thats were the only real choice for the voter remains.

Can you imagine how flawed our present day system would be if we were allowed to redraw state boundaries to maximize the impact of the various red spots and blue spots to make the electoral numbers always work in favor of one side or the other?

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RE: 1804 and the Electoral College - 10/24/2008 9:27:38 PM

DomKen

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There is the additional problem of the extra 2 electors mandated by teh US constitution. Would they be awarded to the overall winner of the state or by some other method? Maybe divide each state up into seperate districts for each elector? Which would certainly result in gerrymandering and vote dilution.

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