ELECTORAL COLLEGE
General Historical Information Prior to 1900 In the political system of the United States, the body of electors in each State who have been chosen to select the President and Vice-President. The expression does not appear in the Constitution or statutes, but is a popular designation of the electors, adopted by analogy to the college of cardinals, to which the choice of the popes is committed. It is sometimes employed of the whole body of electors for President and Vice-President, chosen by all the States. The Constitution prescribes (Art. II.; and Amendments, Art. XII.) the number of electors and the manner in which they shall exercise their high functions, but leaves to the States the mode of appointing them, and to Congress the power to determine a uniform time for choosing them and the day on which they shall give their votes.Accordingly, the members of the electoral college in each and every State are chosen simultaneously by popular vote on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November. Their number is equal to the whole number of Representatives which the State sends to both branches of Congress. They are required to meet at some place designated by the Legislature of their State on the second Monday in January, and then and there to vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, of whom one, at least, shall not be a resident of the same State with themselves. Each electoral college then makes a list of the names of all its candidates for President and Vice-President, with the number of votes for each; the list is signed and certified by every member of the college, is authenticated by the Governor of the State, and transmitted to the President of the Senate of the United States. On the second Wednesday in February the electoral votes are opened and counted in presence of both Houses of Congress, assembled in the chamber of Representatives, and the result is announced by the president of the Senate. The persons who receive the highest number of votes, respectively, for the offices of President and Vice-President are declared elected, provided they have received a majority of all the votes. In case of a tie, the House of Representatives, voting by States, each State having one vote, is to choose between the equal candidates for President, a majority of all the States being necessary to a choice. The Senate has the power to choose in case of a tie in the vote for Vice-President. In the same way, in case there is no tie, but the leading candidates fail to receive a majority of all the votes, the election for President is thrown into the House, and that for Vice-President into the Senate. Under the Constitution as originally framed the electoral colleges did not designate their choice for President or Vice-President but when the total votes were counted by the President of the Senate, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes was declared to be elected President, and his nearest competitor Vice-President. But the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1804, changed the mode of voting for the two officers, the electors being required to vote separately for President and Vice-President. The present position and functions of the electoral college furnish a striking illustration of the way in which a written and stable constitution may be undermined and amended by the silent process of customary observance. It is obvious that the Constitution contemplates that the electoral college in each State shall be a deliberative body of men, freely exercising an untrammeled choice for the high offices which they are to fill. They are not called upon, nor are they expected, to vote as a unit, still less to meet for the sole purpose of registering a result which has already been reached elsewhere and by others. That this remarkable change in the conception of the constitutional functions of the electoral college has been brought about is due to the course of our political development, and particularly to the national convention system of nominating candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. These conventions are not recognized by the Constitution, nor have their nominations any legally binding force. But the electors, subsequently nominated and elected for the sole purpose of giving the vote of the State to a certain party candidate, are as securely bound to that course of action by custom and honor as they would be by statute. The people, consequently, elect the President and Vice-President by States, and the college is a cumbrous machine for formally conveying to Washington the wishes of the majority. Since 1801 the vote of an elector has been known with certainty several weeks before it is cast, and several months before it is officially announced. The electoral system has constantly endangered the State, on account of the absence, until recently, of any general law to govern the president of the Senate in his canvass of the votes, and the tendency of Congress to decide every case of doubt or disputed returns arbitrarily as it arose. Nothing was accomplished, however, until 1887, when a law was passed (approved February 3) to cover the contingency of rival electoral colleges and disputed returns. Under the terms of this act, each State is conceded to have the right of determining all controversies or contests regarding the appointment of its own Presidential electors; and in case of any such contest, Congress is to accept the State's settlement of the same as conclusive, and it cannot reject any electoral vote, duly certified, unless both Houses concurrently decide that that vote has been irregularly given. If more than one return from a State is received, only those votes are to be counted which the State itself has indorsed as regular; but if the State has been unable to settle the question, owing to its having two or more rival sets of authorities, or from any other cause, then the two Houses are to decide the dispute. See Constitution of the United States; Convention; President; and the authorities there referred to. ELECTORAL COMMISSION General Historical Information Prior to 1900 In United States history, the body of men provided for by an act of Congress, approved January 29, 1877, to settle certain disputed questions in regard to the electoral votes of several States in the Presidential election of 1876. As the counting of the electoral votes in the presence of the two Houses of Congress proceeded according to custom, it had been found that there were conflicting certificates from four different States--Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina; and the two Houses were unable to agree in any case which certificate should be received as genuine. The Senate at the time was controlled by the Republican Party, the House of Representatives by the Democratic Party, and there was thought to be danger of civil disturbances on account of certain questions likely to arise in the counting of the electoral votes. Under these circumstances, a majority of each of the two political parties in Congress agreed to create a commission to be composed of five Senators, chosen by the Senate; five members of the House of Representatives, chosen by that body; and five associate justices of the Supreme Court, four of whom were designated by the act of Congress, and the fifth of whom was to be selected by the four--to which commission should be referred, for judgment and decision, the question which of two or more conflicting certificates received from any State of the votes cast by the electoral college of such State for President and Vice-President in the election of 1876 was the certificate provided for in the Constitution of the United States. The judgment of the commission in any matters referred to it, unless set aside by the concurrent action of the Houses of Congress, was to be final. The proposed law was thereupon enacted, and the Senate appointed three Republicans and two Democrats, and the House of Representatives three Democrats and two Republicans as members of the commission. Of the four associate justices of the Supreme Court who were named in the law, two were understood to be Democrats and two Republicans; and these selected as the fifth associate justice to serve with them upon the commission, Mr. Justice Bradley, a Republican. The commission was constituted as follows; Justices Clifford, Strong, Miller, Field, and Bradley; Senators Edmunds, Morton, Frelinghuysen, Thurman, and Bayard; and Representatives Payne, Hunton, Abbott, Garfield, and Hoar. Upon the illness of Senator Thurman, his place was filled by the choice of Senator Kernan. The certificates and accompanying papers were successively referred to the commission, which proceeded to hear argument upon the questions involved. A notable group of distinguished lawyers participated in the conduct of the case, William M. Evarts, Stanley Matthews, E.W. Stoughton, and Samuel Shellabarger representing the Republicans, and Judge J.S. Black, Matthew H. Carpenter, Charles O'Conor, J.A. Campbell, Lyman Trumbull, Ashbel Green, Montgomery Blair, George Hoadley, William C. Whitney, R.T. Merrick, and A.P. Morse representing the Democrats. The result in the case of each State was a decision of the commission, by a vote of 8 to 7--the vote following the line of party division in the body--that the certificate of the electoral votes cast for Hayes and Wheeler, the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President, was the certificate which contained the lawful electoral vote of said State, and that the other certificates were illegal and void. The Republican Senate concurred in this judgment in each case, while the Democratic House of Representatives dissented. The decision of the commission, therefore, according to the terms of the statute, became irrevocable; the electoral votes were counted accordingly; and Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler were found duly elected, by a majority of one electoral vote, respectively President and Vice-President for a term of four years, from March 4, 1877. The controlling question before the commission was whether--an electoral certificate being in form according to law, as those in favor of the Republican candidates were--it was competent for Congress or the commission to go behind the same and take evidence modifying or explanatory (aliunde) in support of alleged irregularities and frauds commited before such certificate was issued. Upon this question the Democrats in Congress and in the commission took the affirmative, while the Republicans took the negative. The full proceedings of the commission were published as part iv., vol. v. of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD of 1877. ELECTORAL REFORM General Historical Information Prior to 1900 In general, any improvement by law or custom in the manner of conducting elections to public office. Specifically, the phrase describes the movement of the last hundred years for the purification of elections in Great Britain and the United States. It is of the utmost importance, in a State whose government rests wholly or in great part on popular suffrage, that public elections should be free and honest. When they are of this character public officials are true representatives of the people, and the legislation and policies which such officials adopt fairly reflect the popular will. The tendency, however, in every representative government is toward the control of nominating conventions and of elections by small bodies of men whose energies are chiefly directed to the manipulation of caucuses and party machinery. While the great mass of electors are engrossed in the conduct of their private affairs, these professional politicians, taking advantage of the popular apathy, dictate nominations to office, force party conventions to register their secret choices, and control the entire machinery of elections. Accordingly, agitation for electoral reforms has usually been directed toward one of three ends; (1) A change in the qualifications of electors; (2) securing to electors the free and effective expression of their choice of officers; (3) the punishment of those guilty of corrupt practices in connection with elections. (1) QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTORS. Both in Great Britain and in the United States the State has treated the elective franchise as a privilege of its citizens, and not as one of their natural rights. Hence it has bestowed that privilege from time to time upon those, and those only, who it has been considered would use it wisely and for the best interests of the State. Public opinion concerning the proper qualifications of voters has undergone many changes during the last hundred years. In the main, these have been in the direction of extending the franchise to new classes of voters, of broadening the basis of the electorate. When the United States became independent, suffrage was limited in every one of the commonwealths to property-owners. In Massachusetts it was required not only that the voter be of age, but that he be the owner of real estate worth L60 sterling, or of a freehold yielding L3 annual income. In New York it was necessary that he be seized of a freehold worth L20, or pay a rent of 40 shillings a year, and have his name on the list of taxpayers. South Carolina insisted upon the voter being a white freeman and freeholder, and believing in the existence of a God and in a future state of rewards and punishment. During the last century, however, most of the States accepted the theory of universal manhood suffrage, and extended the elective franchise to all male citizens of twenty-one years and upward, while a few of the States have granted to women also the privilege of voting. Although the tide of electoral reform in this country has set mainly in the direction of universal suffrage, in some States its purpose has been to impose restrictions upon the elective franchise. California , for example, has enacted that no person who is unable to read the State Constitution in the English language and write his name shall ever exercise the privilege of a State elector. Connecticut and Massachusetts impose somewhat similar restrictions upon voters. Several of the Southern States have recently limited the suffrage by imposing educational qualifications upon voters, or by requiring them to pay certain taxes. This policy has for its prime object the disqualification of ignorant and indigent negroes. In Louisiana and some other States persons are permitted to vote who do not possess the prescribed qualifications, provided they were entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, or are sons or grandsons of persons thus entitled. The class thus excepted includes poor and illiterate whites. In Great Britain the trend of electoral reform has followed the same general course as in the United States, although it has not yet reached the goal of universal manhood suffrage. The electorate has been extended several times, until it includes not only copyholders, leaseholders, and householders of premises of small values, but also men occupying lodgings of the yearly value of L10. Agitation is still in progress for extending the elective franchise to all men of proper age and sound mind, without regard to the ownership or occupation of property, and also for enabling women to vote. See WOMAN SUFFRAGE. (2) PROTECTION OF VOTERS. It is of prime importance that perfect freedom of choice should be secured to electors. Hence the secret ballot has been substituted for the viva voce vote (see BALLOT), and bribery and intimidation of electors are treated as grave criminal offenses. Not only should the elector be allowed to exercise his free choice at the polls, but that freedom ought not to be rendered ineffective by the improper manipulation of caucuses or primaries, or by giving to the voters of some districts undue advantage over others. The caucus or primary is a meeting of the members of a particular political party or group for the purpose of nominating candidates for office within a prescribed district, or of electing delegates to larger conventions of the party, or of declaring party principles. These gatherings have often been controlled by unscrupulous persons, who have not hesitated to resort to fraud and violence. In order that the party caucus or primary should reflect the views of the majority of the party electors of the district, statutes have been enacted in several States surrounding these voluntary gatherings with many of the legal safeguards which protect general elections. The place and time for the caucus or primary is fixed by law; the manner of registration and voting is prescribed, and severe criminal penalties are affixed to fraudulent or violent manipulations of these meetings. While this legal regulation of the primary has done much to mitigate its evils, it is still open to the objection that it leaves the control of the nominating system in the hands of the party managers, and practically excludes the independent voter from exercising any considerable influence in the selection of candidates for public office. The recent increase in the number of independent voters has given them new weight in politics, and they are now demanding a further reform, which has in contemplation the substitution of "direct" for primary and caucus nominations. This is to be effected by permitting a specified number of registered voters to place a candidate in nomination directly, by a written declaration signed by them and without the intervention of the machinery of caucuses and conventions now employed. All candidates for a given office being nominated in the same simple and direct way, it is assumed that they will represent the unconstrained choice of the electorate, and that all will occupy an equal footing as candidates. The method of "direct nominations", as it is called, has recently been adopted in several of the Western States and is apparently meeting with increasing favor in other parts of the country. The experiment is too new, however, to furnish any satisfactory evidence of its real value. A flagrant example of the control of elections by corrupt party managers was formerly afforded by the pocket and rotten boroughs of England, which were disfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832. These were boroughs (having the right to elect members of Parliament) that were controlled by non-resident noblemen, either by reason of their landed proprietorship or of their purchase of the electors. In many of them the number of voters was very small. For example, the borough of Gatton had but seven electors, and that of Old Sarum but one--the keeper of an alehouse. When Lord Russell introduced his Reform Bill in 1831, 90 members of Parliament were returned by 46 boroughs with less than 50 votes each, and a majority of the House of Commons was elected by 15,000 out of 3,000,000 male adults. One peer controlled boroughs which sent up 11 members of his choice to the House of Commons, while some of the great manufacturing centres had no representation in Parliament. The Reform Bill disfranchised 56 of these rotten boroughs, and made a new distribution of Parliamentary representatives throughout the kingdom. A condition of things somewhat similar to that in Britain when Lord Russell introduced his Reform Bill exists in some of our States, notably Connecticut, where the unit of legislative representation is the township. A century and a half ago such a basis of representation was a fair one. Now it is not. Many of the towns have now a smaller population than a hundred years ago, while others have increased their voters a thousandfold. As a result, a handful of electors in a rural township may have an equal voice in the State Legislature with a thousand electors in a large village or a city. Agitations for a redistribution of legislative representatives will continue undoubtedly until the present condition of things in such States is changed. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides that when the right to vote at any Federal or State election is denied to any of the male inhabitants of a State "being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation [ in Congress} therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole." (3) CORRUPT ELECTORAL PRACTICES. The most heinous of these are false personation and repeating by voters, and bribery and intimidation by candidates for office or their partisans. Both in Britain and in this country repeated efforts have been made by legislators to eradicate these practices, but without entire success. Perhaps the most comprehensive and rigorous piece of legislation of this sort is the British Corrupt Practices Act of 1883, with its amendments. Its principal features are: (1) The severe penalties inflicted upon those guilty of false personation at the polls or of voting more than once at the same election, as well as upon all who indulge in the intimidation, undue influence, or bribery of voters; (2) the restriction within very narrow limits of the employment of paid agents, clerks, messengers, and others by candidates or election committees: (3) the prescribing of a fixed scale of lawful expenditures by candidates and committees; (4) requiring a full and correct account of such expenditures. Several of our States have laws of a similar character. Although none of them are as sweeping or as effective as the British act, their results have been beneficial. A lucid account of the provisions and working of the British statute, by its draftsman. Sir Henry James, will be found in THE FORUM for April, 1893 (vol. xv., p. 129). The article is followed by accounts of similar statutes in several of our States. Lord Bradbourne criticises the British act in a series of very entertaining articles on "Old Elections in England" (Blackwood's Magazine, cli. 763, and id., clii. 38, 248, 688). Some of the grosser forms of fraud at elections, such as the use of fraudelent and tissue ballots and the stuffing of ballot-boxes, have been rendered obsolete by the adoption of the Australian ballot, and the assumption by the State of the duty of furnishing an official ballot in place of the party ballot formerly provided by the several party organizations. The practice of repeating, dishonest counts, and false returns of votes have been checked by the registration of voters, the provision of an increased number of official watchers at the polls, and, in some parts of the country, by the employment of voting and counting machines. Consult: Bishop, Colonial Elections (New York, 1893) ; Dallinger, Nominations for Elective Office (New York, 1897); Sturcks, Primary Election Legislation (New York, 1898) ; Ward, Treatise on the Law Relating to Parliamentary and Municipal Elections (2d ed., London, 1886). ELECTORAL VOTES General Historical Information Prior to 1900 The votes cast by Presidential electors in the United States for thePresidential and Vice-Presidential candidates. The candidates for the two offices were not voted for separately until after 1805, before which time the candidate receiving the largest total number of votes at any given election was declared President, and the one receiving the next largest number the Vice-President. The electoral votes cast in the various campaigns since 1789 have been as follows: In 1789: George Washington, 69; John Adams, 34; Samuel Huntington, 2; John Jay, 9; John Hancock, 4; Robert H. Harrison, 6; George Clinton, 3; John Rutledge, 6; John Milton, 2; James Armstrong, Edward Telfair, and Benjamin Lincoln, each, 1. In 1793; George Washington,132; John Adams, 77; George Clinton, 50; Thomas Jefferson, 4; Aaron Burr, 1. In 1797: John Adams, 71; Thomas Jefferson, 68; Thomas Pinckney, 59; Aaron Burr, 30; Samuel Adams, 15; Oliver Ellsworth, 11; George Clinton, 7; John Jay, 5; James Iredell, 3; Samuel Johnston, George Washington, and John Henry, each, 2; Charles C. Pinckney, 1. In 1801: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each 73; John Adams, 65; C.C. Pinckney, 64; John Jay, 1. In 1805: for President, Thomas Jefferson, 162; C.C. Pinckney, 14; for Vice-President, George Clinton , 162; Rufus King, 14. In 1809: for President, James Madison, 122; C.C. Pinckney, 47; George Clinton, 6; for Vice-President, George Clinton, 113; Rufus King, 47; John Langdon 9: James Monroe, 3; and James Madison, 3. In 1813; for President, James Madison, 128; DeWitt Clinton, 89; for Vice-President, Elbridge Gerry, 131; Jared Ingersoll, 86. In 1817: for President, James Monroe, 183; Rufus King, 34; for Vice-President, Daniel D. Tompkins, 183; John E. Howard, 22; James Ross, 5; John Marshall, 4; Robert G. Harper, 3. In 1821: for President, James Monroe, 231; John Q. Adams, 1; for Vice-President, Daniel D. Tompkins, 218; Richard Stockton, 8; Daniel Rodney, 4; Robert G. Harper, Richard Rush, each, 1. In 1825: for President, John Q. Adams, 84: William H. Crawford, 41 ; Andrew Jackson, 99; Henry Clay, 37 ; for Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, 182; Nathan Sanford, 30; Nathaniel Macon, 24; Andrew Jackson, 13; Martin Van Buren, 9; Henry Clay 2. In 1829: for President, Andrew Jackson, 178; John Quincy Adams, 83; for Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, 171; Richard Rush, 83; William Smith, 7. In 1833: for President, Andrew Jackson, 219; Henry Clay, 49; John Floyd, 11; William Wirt, 7; for Vice-President, Martin Van Buren, 189; John Sergeant, 49; William Wilkins, 30; Henry Lee, 11; Amos Ellmaker, 7. In 1837: for President, Martin Van Buren, 170; William H.Harrison, 73; Hugh L. White, 26; Daniel Webster, 14; Willie P. Mangum, 11; for Vice-President, Richard M. Johnson, 147; Francis Granger, 77; John Tyler, 47; William Smith, 23. In 1841: for President, William H. Harrison, 234; Martin Van Buren, 60; for Vice-President, John Tyler, 234; Richard M. Johnson, 48; Lyttleton W. Tazewell, 11; James K. Polk, 1. In 1845; for President, James K. Polk, 170; Henry Clay, 105; for Vice-President, George M. Dallas, 170; Theodore Frelinghuysen, 105. In 1849; for President, Zachary Taylor, 163; Lewis Cass, 127; for Vice-President, Millard Fillmore, 163; William O.Butler, 127. In 1853: for President, Franklin Pierce, 254; Winfield Scott, 42; for Vice-President, William R. King, 254; William A. Graham, 42. In 1857: for President, James Buchanan, 174; John C. Fremont, 114; Millard Fillmore, 8; for Vice-President, John C. Breckinreidge, 174; William L. Dayton, 114; A.J. Donelson, 8. In 1861: for President, Abraham Lincoln, 180; John C. Breckinridge, 72; Stephen A. Douglas, 12; John Bell, 39; for Vice-President, Hannibal Hamlin, 180; Joseph Lane, 72; Herschel V. Johnson, 12; Edward Everett, 39. In 1865: for President, Abraham Lincoln, 212; George B. McClellan, 21; for Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, 212; George H. Pendleton, 21. In 1869: for President, Ulysses S. Grant, 214; Horatio Seymour, 80; for Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, 214; Frank P. Blair, Jr., 80. In 1873: for President, Ulysses S. Grant, 286; Thomas A. Hendricks, 42; B. Gratz Brown, 18 (Horace Greeley having died in November, 1872); Charles J. Jenkins, 2; David Davis, 1; for Vice-President, Henry Wilson, 286; B. Gratz Brown, 47; G.W. Julian, A.H. Colquitt, each, 5; J.M. Palmer, T.E. Bramlette, each, 3; W.S. Groesbeck, W. B. Machen, N.P. Banks, each, 1. In 1877: for President, Rutherford B. Hayes, 185; Samuel J. Tilden, 184; for Vice-President, William A.Wheeler, 185; Thomas A. Hendricks, 184. In 1881: for President, James A Garfield, 214; Winfield S. Hancock, 155; for Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur, 214; William H. English, 155. In 1885: for President, Grover Cleveland, 219; James G. Blaine, 182; for Vice-President, Thomas A. Hendricks, 219; John A. Logan, 182. In 1889: for President, Benjamin Harrison, 233; Grover Cleveland, 168; for Vice-President, Levi P. Morton, 233; Allen G. Thurman, 168. In 1893: for President, Grover Cleveland, 277; Benjamin Harrison, 145 J.B.Weaver, 22; for Vice-President, A. E. Stevenson, 277; W. Reid, 145; J.G. Field, 22. In 1897: for President, William McKinlley, 271; William J. Bryan, 176; for Vice-President, Garret A. Hobart, 271; Arthur Sewall, 149; Thomas E. Watson, 27. In 1901: for President, William McKinley, 292; William J. Bryan, 155: for Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt 292; A.E. Stevenson, 155. Consult: Stanwood, History of the Presidency (Boston, 1898). Source: The New International Encyclopaedia Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company- New York Copyright: 1902-1905 Total of 21 Volumes Transcribed by Miriam Medina Return to VOTE Main Return to BROOKLYN Main