Background Information
When the House elected John Quincy Adams
in 1825, the political party system was in a state of flux, and no particular
party was especially strong. In fact,
none of the Presidential contenders at the time even had any distinct party
designation. Andrew Jackson won far more
popular votes, as well as more electoral votes, than any other candidate, but
he did not win a majority of either.
Consequently, the election defaulted to the House, which, as stipulated
by the Constitution, had to choose a President from the top three electoral
vote winners. Henry Clay was fourth
place in electoral votes won and, therefore, was eliminated from the Electoral
College
The President of the United States is not actually
elected directly by the citizenry, but rather by a relatively small group of
people known as electors. Each state, as
well as Washington, D. C., which is not a state, chooses its own new set of
electors every time there is a Presidential election. The electors from all the various states (and
from Washington, D. C.) are referred to collectively as the Electoral College,
although it obviously is not a college in the normal or conventional sense. Indeed, the electors from all the different
states (and Washington,
D. C.) never even convene all together.
Instead, in December following any
Presidential election, on a day set by law, the electors from each state
assemble, usually in their respective state capitals, and cast their votes for
President (and Vice President). Either
by custom or, in a few states, by law, the electors usually, but not always,
vote for their respective political party's choices.
For several years after the Constitution
became effective as the supreme law of the land in 1788, most of the electors
were chosen by the state legislatures.
Thus, the general citizenry did not really have any influence in
electing the President, except in the sense that the people elected their state
legislators, who in turn chose state electors, who in turn elected the
President.
After about 1800, more and more states
began choosing their electors in popular elections, and today all the states
(and Washington, D. C.) choose their electors by popular vote.
Thus, an American citizen who votes on
Election Day does not actually vote for any Presidential or Vice-Presidential
candidate. Instead, the citizen, whether
knowingly or not, votes for a slate of potential electors selected by the
political party that nominated the candidates favored by the voting citizen.
Moreover, the slates of potential electors
voted on are not selected by any national political party entity, but rather by
the political party factions within the particular state in which the voting
citizen resides, under the rules established by the particular state
legislature. Every political party in
every state (and Washington,
D. C.), independent of all the other states, may select a slate of potential
Presidential electors.
Thus, each state (and Washington, D. C.)
has a slate of Democratic electors and a slate of Republican electors, and
possibly slates for third parties such as the Libertarians or other
parties. Therefore, considering only the
Democrats and the Republicans, in every Presidential election, there are 102
different groups of potential electors -- a separate group for each party in
every one of the 50 states, as well as for Washington, D. C.
Winner-Take-All Rules
All of the potential electors chosen by
the party of the candidate who wins a plurality of a given state's popular
votes (more votes than any other candidate), but not necessarily a majority
(more than 50 percent), usually become that state's electors. Thus, all the electors from any given state
will usually be from the same political party.
Maine and Nebraska are presently the only states where
electors can be from more than one party in any given election year.
Therefore, a candidate usually must win
only a plurality of a state's popular votes to win all of the state's electoral
votes. This is true provided that all
the state's electors subsequently vote for their party's choice in the
following December.
Electoral Vote Splits
As said before, a state's electors usually
vote for the candidate of their party's choice, but not always. When the electors of a state do not all vote
the same way, this is called an electoral "spilt." Although there have been numerous splits in
the past, they have all been too insignificant to alter the course of any
election. For example, in the
Presidential election of 1976, which was won by Jimmy Carter, the state of Washington cast seven of
its eight electoral votes for Carter's opponent Gerald Ford and one vote for
Ronald Reagan. This was the only
electoral vote split in that election year.
Number of Electors
The United States Constitution decrees
that each individual state shall appoint, in such a manner as each individual
state legislature may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of
United States
senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the United
States Congress.
Every state is entitled to two
Senators. Because there are 50 states in
the Union, the total number of senators is
100.
Under the Constitution as originally
ratified, each state was entitled to a number of representatives not exceeding
one representative for every 30,000 "persons" living in the state,
but slaves were each counted as only 3/5 of a person, and native American
Indians were not counted at all. The fourteenth
amendment, however, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born
or naturalized in the United States, with all citizens counted equally with
respect to representation in the House of Representatives.
As the United
States population grew over time, the total number of
representatives for the whole Union continued
to grow also. Ever since 1929, however,
the total number of representatives for the Union as a whole has been fixed at
435, and the number entitled to any given state has been proportionate to that
state's population relative to the population of the Union as a whole. Therefore, the 50 states are collectively
entitled to 535 electors (as a result of there being a total of 100 senators
and 435 representatives). Washington, D.
C., although not a state, has since 1961 has been entitled to three electors,
under the 23rd amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, the total number of electors for
the Union as a whole is fixed at 538 (535 plus
3).
After a national census is taken at the
turn of every decade, the number of representatives entitled to each of the
states is redetermined. Consequently,
although the total numbers of representatives and electors is constant at 435
and 538, respectively, every ten years the numbers entitled to any given state
may change if significant shifts have occurred in the state's population
relative to that of the other states.
Every state is entitled to at least one
Representative, no matter how small the state population might be. Therefore, every state in the Union is entitled to at least three electors: one due to
having at least one representative, and two more due to having two
senators. Reapportionment after the 2000
census resulted in there currently (2008) being seven states (and Washington D.C.)
that each have only three electoral votes.
California has 55, which is far more
than any other state in the Union.
Number of Electoral Votes Needed To Win an
Election
As said before, only a plurality of a
given state's popular vote is generally sufficient to win all of the state's
electoral votes. In sharp
contradistinction, a majority of all the electoral votes that could be cast
nationwide is needed to win the election by the Electoral College. Because there are 538 electors nationwide, an
Electoral College majority equates to 270 or more electoral votes. In the event that no candidate could win an
electoral vote majority, the United States Congress would determine the outcome
of the election. This has happened only
twice in United States
history.
Under the original Constitution, each
elector cast two electoral votes on the same ballot. The candidate with the greatest number of
votes, if that number constituted a majority, became President, and the
candidate in second place became Vice President. The 12th amendment, however,
ratified in 1804, changed the procedure.
Under the revised rules, each elector casts one vote for President on
one ballot and one vote for Vice President on a separate ballot. A candidate who wins a majority of votes on
the Presidential ballot is elected President, and a candidate who wins a
majority of votes on the Vice-Presidential ballot is elected Vice President.
Winning the Election without an Electoral
Vote Majority
In the event that no Presidential
candidate could win an electoral vote majority, the House of Representatives
would choose a President from the top three Presidential contenders. In analogous fashion, if no Vice-Presidential
candidate could win an electoral majority, the Senate would choose a Vice
President from the top two Vice-Presidential contenders. In both chambers of Congress (the House and
the Senate), each state would be entitled to only one vote, irrespective of the
state's population or its electoral vote entitlement. Thus, for example, California and Wyoming
would each have one vote, despite California
being far more populous.
Washington, D. C., because it is not a
state, would not be allowed to vote in this stage of an election,
notwithstanding that Washington, D. C.'s electoral vote (or abstinence from
voting) would have contributed to the election's having defaulted to the
Congress in the first place.
For any candidate to be elected by the
House or Senate to the Presidency or Vice Presidency, respectively, at least two-thirds
of the states in the relevant chamber of Congress would have to vote. This is to say that two-thirds of the states
would constitute a quorum in either chamber.
Given that there are currently 50 states, a present-day quorum would
comprise at least 34 states.
In addition, for any candidate to be
elected by the House or Senate to the Presidency or Vice Presidency,
respectively, a majority of all states would be necessary to a choice. Thus,
because there are 50 states, a candidate would have to win at least 26 state
votes in the relevant chamber to be elected.
Historical Rarities
Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams
were the only two Presidents ever elected by the House of Representatives. The House elected Jefferson
in 1801, when most states still allowed their legislators to choose electors
and when the Electoral College still voted for President and Vice president on
the same ballot. Jefferson and Aaron
Burr tied in electoral votes, and the House could not decide between the two
men until the 36th House ballot. The
voting went on so long that there was concern that a President would not be
elected before inauguration day. This
prolonged election was what led to the aforementioned 12th amendment
that changed the voting rules of the Electoral College.
Clay, being a stanch political rival of Jackson's, threw his
support in the House to Adams, who, as a direct result of Clay's support, was
elected. Thus, history recorded the
irony of the least successful Presidential candidate of the election of 1824
(Clay) having been ultimately responsible for determining who would be
President (Adams).
Criticism of the Electoral College
It is popular to criticize the Electoral
College process. Many people argue that
it is an outmoded, unfair system, created when communications were slow and it
was unwieldy to base a Presidential election on the popular vote.
Critics of the Electoral College process argue
that under this system a candidate can be elected with less than a majority of
the popular votes cast and, even worse, can be elected with fewer popular votes
than another candidate. Both of these statements
are true. In fact, there have been
numerous Presidents elected with less than a majority of the popular vote. The list includes, among others, Abraham
Lincoln, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Moreover, neither John Quincy Adams,
Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, nor George W. Bush (in his first election)
won the majority of the popular vote. In
fact, John Quincy Adams won the Presidency with less than 31 percent of the
popular vote.
Ironically, proponents of the Electoral
College often likewise cite such elections as reasons for keeping the Electoral
College, rather than for getting rid of it.
They argue that if every president had to win a majority of the popular
vote, runoff elections would frequently be required, thereby lengthening the
Presidential election process and potentially jeopardizing the nation's
security during the transition of power from one administration to the next.
Seldom recognized by the public is that
Electoral College, like the bicameral legislature, was the result of
compromises without which the Constitution would never have been adopted. The various states did not want to give up
their individual sovereignties; in particular, the small states did not want to
be pushed around by the larger states, and rural dwellers did not want to be
overwhelmed by the dense populations of the cities.
The Senate was created as a result of
these opposing viewpoints. Every state has two senators, regardless of the
population or size of the state. On the
other hand, the House was created to provide representation proportionate to a
state's population. The Electoral
College embodies both aspects of the bicameral legislature in that every state
is entitled to a number of electors equal to the sum of the number of its
senators and representatives.
A powerful argument in favor of the
Electoral College process is that, despite its shortcomings, it guarantees that
nobody can be elected President absent support of the majority representation
of the people, which is not necessarily to say a majority of the popular vote.
The United States, notwithstanding
notions to the contrary, is not a democracy.
Rather, it is a democratic republic.
In a democracy everybody gets to vote on every issue. In a democratic republic, people elect other
people to represent them on the issues.
Thus, the people elect their state
legislators, who in turn select slates of potential state electors. Then, the people vote on whom among the
potential electors will be the actual electors.
The electors in turn vote for President.
If no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the election
defaults to the House of Representatives, the people elect the members of
which. And, in the House, no candidate
can win the Presidency without a majority of state votes. Therefore, by whatever route a person is
elected President, the election is won by a majority vote of the persons who,
however indirectly, represent the majority of the voting public of the United States.
Development of the Two-Party Political
System
For more than 165 years, two political
parties have dominated United
States Presidential politics, although not
always the same two parties. From about
1828 to the late 1850s, the two dominating parties were the Democrats and the
Whigs, with the Democrats having been much the stronger of the two
parties. From the 1860 to the present,
the two main parties have been the Democrats and the Republicans, with the
balance of power swinging back and forth.
The two-party political system has become
so interwoven in our government that the power of the system is exceeded only
by the Constitution itself. Moreover,
the synergism of the two-party system together with the Constitution has
imparted to the office of President a mystique that probably was never
envisioned by the framers of the Constitution and that, most likely, has been
crucial to the long-term stability of our government.
This phenomenon is especially significant,
because the Constitution makes no mention whatsoever of political parties. As a matter of fact, George Washington, who
headed the Constitutional Convention, originally opposed their development, as
did many other political leaders of the time.
Nevertheless, common interests inevitably brought different groups of
people together to form political parties, and had they not been formed, the
Constitution would probably have never come about, let alone have been so
enduring.
Political parties did not just spring
forth from whole cloth, and it is difficult to pin down exactly when any given
party began or ended. The earliest
political parties in America
were probably the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. These parties, however, were not really
political parties in exactly the same sense that parties are today. Present-day political parties debate how the
nation should be governed under a Constitution that has long since been
adopted. In clear contradistinction, the
fundamental issue that was originally disputed between the Federalist party and
the Anti-Federalist party was whether the Constitution should be adopted in the
first place. The Federalists favored
adoption, or ratification, of the Constitution, whereas the Anti-Federalists opposed
its ratification.
The opposing viewpoints from which the
Constitution emerged no doubt contributed to its longevity, as the endurance of
the Constitution rests in part on a great paradox. On one hand, state loyalties prompted the framers
of the Constitution to leave many important powers to the states. On the other hand, the framers deliberately
wrote the Constitution in such general terms that certain powers could be
retrieved from the states when the advance of industry and changes in
international relations made it necessary to wield these powers on a national
level.
That the Constitution was ever adopted is
as amazing as it was fortunate for the American people. The Revolution freed the American states from
English rule but did not forge a nation.
Notwithstanding that the colonists from the various states had fought in
a common cause, they still thought of themselves not primarily as Americans,
but rather as citizens of individual states.
This feeling was embodied in the loose form of government that existed
prior to the Constitution.
Through most of the Revolution, the sole
document binding the states was the Declaration of Independence. Although in 1775, Benjamin Franklin drafted
the first "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union," they did
not go into effect (after much debate and numerous changes) until March 1781,
only seven months before the British surrendered (at Yorktown, Virginia). The Articles gave the new government many
apparent powers but kept it weak in key areas.
For example, Congress (which was then a single- chambered legislature)
could make war but could not levy taxes to pay for it. Many of the important Congressional powers
could be exercised only with the consent of nine of the thirteen states that
were then united. Moreover, the Articles
could be amended only after Congress and every state legislature agreed.
Many leading Americans wondered whether a
permanent union was particularly desirable and whether it was even plausible to
organize so much territory under one government. Frictions arose over interstate commerce,
regional interests, and opposing claims to the western domain.
Nonetheless, the American states had
shared many common experiences and were facing common problems. At the very least, the states had a common
debt to pay off, inherited from the Revolution.
As the bonds of the Articles continued to unravel, farseeing leaders
increased the pressure to provide a more stable system on government. Yet, many were loath to substitute an
altogether new document for the Articles.
Consequently, when the states finally
agreed to hold the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, the avowed purpose was only
to amend the Articles. Only after the
delegates convened did they decide to draft the Constitution, and even so it
was very controversial. Of the 55
delegates who took part in the deliberations, only 42 stayed to the end, and
only 39 signed the document that finally emerged in September 1987. Ratification by three-quarters (nine) of the
states was the final step required to make the Constitution effective.
The ratification process went along
smoothly at first. As the number of
state ratifications passed the halfway mark, however, the Anti-Federalists
began to gain strength, and many and bitter controversies arose in the populace
and in the legislatures of the states that had not yet ratified the new
document. It did not become effective
until June 21, 1788, when New
Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the
document.
Virginia ratified it later the same month, and New York the month
after, but neither state was willing to do so until being promised that the
Constitution would be amended with the Bill of Rights, which is the name given
to the first ten amendments. Rhode Island and North Carolina
were both so hostile to the Constitution that they did not join the Union until after the new government was already in
operation. North Carolina held out until November
1789. Rhode Island, at the time considered as
having always been reluctant to participate in interstate efforts, held out
until May 1790. Even then, Rhode Island's decision
to ratify the Constitution was made by a very narrow margin.
Given that the Anti-Federalists opposed
the adoption of the Constitution, it is not surprising that the party died within
a few years after the Constitution was ratified. The issue of the Constitution, however, still
divided the country, and during the first years of the new government,
factional leaders worked to strengthen their positions and mobilize their
supporters.
The Federalist party, being the political
party responsible for the new government's existence, at first enjoyed several
advantages. For example, they had a
clear program of strong central government.
Further, they had control of the army and the willingness to use it; to
wit, the crushing of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when 15,000 federal troops
subdued Pennsylvania
farmers who protested a new tax on distilled spirits. Most importantly, the Federalists had in
Alexander Hamilton a leader who was brilliant, resourceful, energetic, and
uncompromising.
A democratic republic, however, does not
long tolerate only one party in power, especially a party of elitists, which is
exactly how many of the poorer, less well educated, and less fortunate people viewed
the Federalists. It did not take the
opposition very long to join ranks in support of Thomas Jefferson, an ardent
foe of Hamilton and the strong central
government for which Hamilton
stood. In the early 1790s, as the power
of the Anti-Federalists waned, Jefferson led
the formation of the Democratic-Republican party. This was the first major political party born
under Constitutional rule. The new party
wrested the White House from the Federalists in 1801, when the House of
Representatives, in that long-drawn out election that eventually led to the 12th
amendment, elected Jefferson President, after no candidate succeeded in winning
an electoral vote majority.
The decline of the Federalist party
probably began, in large part, with the Louisiana Purchase
in 1803. This enormous expansion of United States territory helped destroy the
controlling influence of New England, where
the strength of the Federalist party was rooted. The War of 1812 accelerated the process of
decline, and the Federalists were but a memory by about 1816. For the next eight years Jefferson's
Democratic-Republicans held sway. This
period was the first and last time in our history to date during which the United States
operated under a one-party political system.
It was known as the "period of good feelings." Ironically, the
absence of a second party probably contributed to complacency on the part of
the Democratic-Republicans and, consequently, the demise of the party. Thus, as said before, in the election of
1824, no major Presidential contender was affiliated with any major party, and
the result was the second and last time in our history to date that the
election defaulted to the House of Representatives.
When the House elected John Quincy Adams
over Andrew Jackson 1825, the outrage of Jackson's
supporters led to the formation of the Democratic party, which is the oldest
existing political party in the United
States.
The short-lived (ten years) National Republican party was formed about
the same time, but never won the Presidency.
The Whig party was also formed about the same time and lasted until the
outbreak of the Civil war, but the Whigs never united sufficiently, and from
1828, when Jackson
won the Presidency, until 1860, the Democrats beat the Whigs in all but two
elections (1840 and 1848).
Around 1854 the Republican party emerged,
and in 1860 Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President. The Civil War put the Republicans solidly in
power, and, consequently, from 1860 through 1928 they won 14 of the 18 Presidential
elections. In 1932, however, during the
Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, Franklin D.
Roosevelt won for the Democrats.
Twenty-four years then passed before Dwight Eisenhower won for the
Republicans in 1952. He served two terms
and retired. Democrats won the
Presidency in 1960 (John Kennedy), 1964 (Lyndon Johnson), and 1976 (Jimmy
Carter), but Republicans (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George
H. W. Bush) occupied the White House for 20 of the 24 years from 1969 until
1993, when Bill Clinton won for the Democrats.
In 2000, George W. Bush, the son of George H. W. Bush, won and served
two terms. Incidentally, George W. Bush
is only one of two Presidents in history whose father was also a President, the
other being John Quincy Adams. In the
election of 2008, Republican candidate John McCain, a Senator and Vietnam War, lost
to Democrat Barack Obama, also a Senator and the first black person in history
to be elected President. 2008 also marked
the first time since 1960 when a Senator won the Presidency (the last one being
John Kennedy).
Thus, ever since its early history, United States
Presidential politics have been dominated by two political parties: first the Federalists and Anti-Federalists;
then the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans; next the Democrats and the
Whigs; and, most significantly, the Democrats and the Republicans. For more than 130 years, the Presidency has
shifted back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans for relatively
long periods of time on each swing.
Excepting the elections of 1840 and 1848, either a Democrat or a
Republican has won every Presidential election since 1824.
Third Parties
The two-party political system is so
entrenched in America
today that all parties other than the Democrats and the Republicans are
referred to as "third parties."
There are and have been numerous third parties in the United States, but no third party
candidate has ever won a Presidential election.
Indeed, none has even come close to winning.
On the other hand, third parties
potentially can influence, and arguably have influenced, the outcomes of
Presidential elections, by drawing votes away from the candidates of the two
major parties. Also, third parties
influence the positions and policies of the major parties. By drawing public attention to various
issues, third parties often force major party candidates to modify their
positions, so as to prevent losing votes to the third party candidates.
Third parties are of several different
types, depending on their origins and objectives. Some third parties are groups that have
broken away from major parties. Some
third parties are what are known as "single-issue" parties; for
example, the Prohibition Party, formed in 1869, opposes alcoholic
beverages. Some third parties seek to
change the basic form of our government, for example, the Communist Party. Some third parties support broad programs of
change and try to gain favor across a wide spectrum of the citizenry. This type of third party is the most likely
some day to displace either the Democrats or the Republicans as one of the
major two parties in the country. The most successful third-party candidates in
American history were Theodore Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette, and George Wallace.
Roosevelt, as a Republican, won the election of
1904, but in 1912 he ran as a candidate of the Progressive party, which
comprised a group that had broken away from the Republican party. As the Progressive party nominee in 1912, Roosevelt won more than 27 percent of the popular vote,
and he also won 88 electoral votes.
In 1924 the Progressive party nominee was
Robert LaFollette, who won almost 17 percent of the popular vote but only 13
electoral votes.
In contrast, George Wallace, a Governor of
Alabama, won less than 14 percent of the popular vote as an American
Independent nominee in 1968, but he carried five states and won 46 electoral
votes, second only to Theodore Roosevelt among the ranks of third-party
candidates.
In 1992, a conservative Texas billionaire and businessman, H. Ross
Perot, representing no political party, ran for President against incumbent
Republican George Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton, then the
Governor of Arkansas. Perot won more
than 17 percent of the popular vote, but his support was so widely dispersed
across the country that he did not carry a single state and, consequently, won
no electoral votes. He attracted votes
away from both of the major party candidates, and it was a matter of debate as
to whether he hurt Bush or Clinton more.
Clinton
won the election with an electoral landslide but only 43 percent of the popular
vote.
It was generally agreed that Perot's 1992
candidacy pressured both the major parties into political concessions that
might otherwise not have been made. Many
political analysts argued that Perot's showing was less indicative of support
for him than it was dissatisfaction with both Bush and Clinton.
The result of Ross Perot's foray into
Presidential politics – 17 percent of the popular vote but no electoral votes –
clearly illustrates how deeply rooted the two-party political system is in America. This system, in conjunction with the
Electoral College process as changed by the 12th amendment in 1804, virtually
guarantees that nobody will be elected President who is not a nominee of one of
the two dominant parties, which for more than a century have been the
Republicans and the Democrats.
Moreover, unless a third party candidate
can win enough electoral votes to throw the election into the Congress, it is a
virtual certainty that the President and Vice President during any given term
of office will always be nominees of the same party. It is theoretically and legally possible to
be otherwise, but extremely unlikely. In
the unlikely event that the election did default to the Congress, the party
affiliation of the President and Vice president would likely depend on the
relative strength of the different parties in the House and the Senate,
respectively, on a state-by-state basis.
That is to say, each state would have only one vote, irrespective of its
population.
