Amendment 12 Changed Voting for Vice President

Our country’s first presidents--George Washington, James Adams and Thomas Jefferson--had no choice in selecting the persons who became their second in command. The person who received the second number of elector votes became vice president. During Jefferson’s first term, the U.S. Eighth Congress submitted the 12^th Amendment. That amendment stipulates that each elector in the Electoral College must cast a distinct vote for president and vice president. This amendment became law when it was ratified by 17 of the existing 21 states on Sept. 25, 1804. The remaining four states approved the law later that year.

George Washington

The Electoral College becomes a topic of discussion and disagreement each presidential election year. From now until the national vote in November 2016, many opinions and discussions about the country’s method of electing a president will fill airtime and print space for local and national media.

This is a brief explanation of how the Electoral College selects the U.S. president, not the actual votes that citizens make. When Americans vote for a president and vice president, they vote for presidential electors. These electors are called the Electoral College. The U.S. Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of each state’s senators and representatives. Presently, the number of electors per state ranges from 3 to 54 for a total of 538 for all U.S. states and territories.

The Electoral College members meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the presidential election in the previous month. The electors make their selections according to the popular vote in each of their states. On the sixth day of January, each states’ electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress and the winner is named U.S. president. This very cumbersome, awkward procedure was established to help even out the influence of population density that greatly dominated the east coast of America.

In modern times when electronic results and exit polling usually determine the winner by the time polls close on the West Coast, the Electoral College often gets criticized as obsolete and completely unnecessary. Use of the Electoral College shows how the United States is governed as a republic, not a democracy. Instead of electing the president by the votes of each citizen, the population selects electors who actually pick the president. The Electoral College is a topic for a more detailed blog post later this year.

John Adams

In modern elections, a vice president candidate is selected to appeal to a set of voters who don’t fully agree with a person running for president. Each political party hopes the person selected for vice president will complement the choice for number one. And it’s important to select a person who will agree with the philosophy of the president and not act as a rival. A successful administration relies on cooperation between the top two office holders.

Thomas Jefferson

The first three presidents had number two men with different opinions about running the country. John Adams lost to George Washington and automatically became the first vice president. When John Adams became president, Thomas Jefferson automatically became his vice president by losing the presidential vote. The third president, Thomas Jefferson, had his rival Aaron Burr as vice president during his first term. Each of the first three presidential administrations exited with friction and disagreement between the president and vice president.

George Clinton

Jefferson was the first president to pick his vice president. He was re-elected president in 1805 after the 12^th Amendment became law, and he selected George Clinton as the fourth vice president. The 12^th Amendment helped streamline the presidential voting process by allowing the winning political party to select the person they wanted to be vice president.

Information used in this post came from the National Archives and Record Administration website and Wikipedia. 

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