After independence in 1776, there was a lot of apprehension in electing the president due to the fact that all the free colonies had been fighting for independence from British monarchy. Now, the new democratic setup envisaged that American people would have the power to elect their president. However, the framers of the constitution feared that, if the president was elected by direct popular vote, they may wield great power due to their personal popularity and could turn authoritarian, and even become a dictator. This fear ran very deep even though voting was restricted to only white men who owned property. It is important to note that all of the population was, originally, immigrants from Europe with a majority from Britain (forty percent) and, who could not trust each other. Therefore, an indirect method for the election of the president was established in September 1787 under Article II, Section I of the constitution that was ratified in June 1788.
The process was ingenious, see https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/ a brief summary from Article II Section I is quoted below.
“.…. 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.
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…….”
Using this process, George Washington, our first president, and John Adams, our first vice-president, were elected unanimously in April 1789, nearly thirteen years after the declaration of independence. Despite not wanting to be the president, George Washington was again elected unanimously in 1792 to serve four more years until 1797. George Washington is the only president to be voted unanimously by the electors to serve two terms. He had the enormous burden of setting the standard for the first true presidency in a world of kings and dictators, discounting Filippo Antonio Pasquale de Paoli, who was elected president of the Corsican Republic in 1755. The birth and fall of Corsica in 1769 inspired the American Revolution (https://www.grunge.com/441925/the-heroic-story-of-the-island-that-inspired-the-american-revolution/).
John Adams, after serving two terms as vice president with George Washington was elected as the second president on March 4, 1797 with Thomas Jefferson as the vice president. He had served just one term when the election of 1800 became a partisan fight between Federalist Adams and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson the vice president, in a contest for third presidency. It was just eleven years into the history of US presidency, a work-in-progress in a novel democratic experiment the world had ever seen when the nation seemed to break apart because of the dirty bitterness of the campaigns, mudslinging, misinformation, attacks and counter attacks. There was even talk of disunion and two states even began organizing the militia and planned to take over the government if Jefferson did not prevail (https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/essay/presidential-election-1800-story-crisis-controversy-and-change). Each side believed that a victory for the other side would ruin the nation. Adams was Jefferson’s main opponent (https://www.ushistory.org/us/20a.asp). Due to a constitutional provision, the votes for President and Vice President were not listed on separate ballots and when the electoral votes were counted both Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes (73) versus 65 for Adams. The election was decided in the House of Representatives where each state wielded a single vote. Alexander Hamilton sided with Jefferson and got the support of 10 states to back him while 4 states voted for Burr with 2 states making no choice. This made Jefferson the third US president and Aaron Burr the vice-president and ended the controversy.
To correct the weakness of the electoral system which was partly responsible for the election crisis of 1800, congress passed the 12th amendment to Article II Section I of the constitution on December 9, 1803 providing for an electoral college with separate votes for the President and Vice President. It was ratified on June 15, 1804. Nevertheless, in just 20 years in 1824 the election again had to be decided by in the house. The reason this time was multiple candidates with no clear winner. The Democratic-Republican party became the dominant party winning six consecutive elections until then. There were no candidates from the Federalists and four candidates from the Democratic-Republican party. Andrew Jackson received the greatest number of electoral and popular vote whereas John Quincy Adams was a close second with Henry Clay and William Crawford. Therefore, under provision of 12th amendment, a contingent election was held that elected John Quincy Adams as president on February 8, 1925 under a “corrupt bargain” (https://www.ushistory.org/us/23d.asp) by Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. Henry Clay, as speaker of the house, did not want Andrew Jackson, a man he detested, and who got the most votes, to be president. He rounded up support from Ohio Valley and New England to assure the presidency for John Quincy Adams in the contingent election. Henry Clay got to become the Secretary of State as a return favor. This would split the party and ended the “era of good feelings” that James Monroe started (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_United_States_presidential_election). It was also kind of a revenge to how Thomas Jefferson usurped the presidency from John Adams, John Quincy’s father.
The next big compromise was in the presidential election of 1876 where the southern democrats led by Samuel Tilden/Thomas Hendricks had a total of 184 electoral votes against 165 electoral votes for the ruling republican party led by Rutherford Hayes/William Wheeler with 20 votes unresolved and disputed from the states of FL, LA and SC. An informal deal between the parties awarded the 20 votes to the republican party to win the presidency by one vote even though the popular vote was won by southern democrats by 3 percentage points. The compromise was to withdraw federal troops from the southern states that enabled white southern Democrats to reverse many of the political and social gains African-Americans had realized during the Reconstruction. Shadow slavery continued in the southern states despite the emancipation proclamation by president Lincoln abolishing it in 1862.
In response to the disputed electoral vote count of 1876 and close elections in 1880 and 1884, congress enacted the Electoral Count Act in 1887. It aimed to shift the burden of responsibility of counting the electoral votes from congress to the states with the vice-president acting as the president of congress (senate and house) having only a ceremonial responsibility of counting the votes. The governors of each state have the ultimate say in what slate of electors are certified for the final vote count. While this law has never been tested, it also allowed for objections from senators to the slate of electors put forward by each state. The law is confusing, contradictory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act) to its intent and prone to misinterpretations. Despite this, all vice presidents of losing parties in power have executed their ceremonial duties.
In summary, the electoral votes process developed by the framers of the constitution was intended to be an indirect method of electing the president and vice president so that the persons so elected do not behave as monarchs or dictators. Unfortunately, the process has led to so much ambiguity, horse trade, confusion and compromises that have failed to accord legitimacy to the office of the presidency in many years when the elections were close or disputed. Over 700 proposals in the past 200 years have been put forward to reform of eliminate the indirect electoral process. Americans have favored abolishing it in public opinion polls with majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981 (https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/history). Even if a candidate wins the popular vote (the basis of democracy), there is no guarantee that they will win the presidency, as it has happened five times in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 elections. Any change to the electoral process or trying to abolish it requires a two-third majority in congress with three-quarter of the states ratifying it, using the common method.
If the ideas proposed under DSC (please read articles on – What is DSC; Making the first move to DSC; National Elections Board) was accepted as a method to reform our governance, there would be enough support from the American public to abolish the electoral process with conduct and integrity of the elections ensured by the National Elections Board with no partisan interference. This supremacy in the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another without ambiguity could become a living example for democratic setups in other parts of the world.
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