Nomination and Election of President and Vice President and Qualifications for Voting

would manifestly come nearer to representing the popular vote than does the present system, especially if there was some assurance of a just and permanent arrangement of district boundaries." But without that assurance," which it would seem impossible to provide, there would still be the same danger of gerrymandering that there is in our Congressional elections. Of all the plans proposed, the district system has received the most favorable consideration in Congress. Not only did an amendment for the choice of electors by districts pass the Senate at four different times between 1813 and 1824," but in subsequent discussions some application of the district system to the choice of President has received the support of many of the leading statesmen of the country."

The proposition for the distribution of the electoral vote of each State among the candidates in the proportion the electoral ratio shall bear to the popular vote of each candidate seems the fairest and most desirable of all the plans presented, as it retains the relative importance of each State, and at the same time secures to the minority its due proportion of the vote.15

The almost countless variety of the plans proposed is not only indicative of the dissatisfaction there is with the present anomalous system, but also shows that it would be next to an impossibility to secure the adoption of a new method of election, owing to the difficulty of uniting a sufficient number of the States in favor of any one plan. The fact that it was impossible to secure the indorsement of any one of the plans proposed in the years succeeding the contested election of 1876 by even one branch of Congress indicates that the adoption of a new system of electing the Chief Magistrate is improbable before the present method of amending the Constitution is itself changed. Since 1876 no proposition for a change of the method of electing the President has been brought to a vote in Congress, and since 1880 even the slight promise of success implied in & favorable report by a committee of either House of Congress, has been lacking. Likewise in recent years the general public has exhibited little interest in the matter.

(The following is reprinted from "Selecting the President: The Twenty-Seventh Discussion and Debate Manual" (1953-54), vol. 1, edited by Bower Aly:)

THE RESOLUTION OF ELECTORAL DEADLOCKS BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

By Paul J. Piccardt

THE PROBLEM

The Constitution of the United States, in the Twelfth Amendment, provides in part as follows:

The person having the greatest number of [electoral] votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all States shall be necessary to a choice.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected President by the House of Representatives under the somewhat different provisions of the original Constitution, but the election of 1824 was the only one in the history of the United States that did not result in a majority vote by the electoral college. Table II, below, summarizes the vote by which John Quincy Adams was elected President. An account of the intrigue and maneuvering that accompanied these two House elections belongs properly to a study of the history of presidential elections; for the present it is sufficient to note that the outcome did not depend upon either the popular vote or the electoral vote. Once the election went to the House, it was not to be determined by the majority or even a plurality of the members there, but rather by a majority of the states. The constitutional requirements remain the same today.

Despite the record of the electoral college in producing majority decisions ever since the days of the second Adams, it is evident from a study of the mathematics of presidential elections that the threat of a deadlock

+Paul J. Piccard did his work for the doctorate at the University of Texas, where he submitted a dissertation on the electoral college that provides the basis for this article. Recently a member of the faculty of the University of Alabama, he is now a Visiting Professor of Public Administration at the Florida State University.

is very great whenever there are more than two serious contenders for the presidency. Truman's success in 1948, for example, hung on the very slender thread of a few thousand votes in certain key states.

There are two reasons for studying the manner of resolving a failure of the electoral college to render a majority verdict. First, such an examination will demonstrate the serious consequences involved in an election of the President by the House of Representatives. Second, it points to a phase of the system of electing the chief executive that is well known to practical politicians and which therefore conditions their strategy and tactics. The possibility of a choice in the Congress is one of several characteristics of presidential elections that needs to be examined in order to comprehend the total impact of the mechanics of selecting the first magistrate upon the shape of modern American politics. An understanding of just this one phase of presidential elections will lead to two conclusions: the electoral college system is more than a pleasant anachronism and it needs to be changed by a constitutional amendment.

In 1912, 1924, and 1948, the electoral vote was divided between three pairs of candidates rather than the usual two. An account of what would have happened had these three elections gone to the Congress will illustrate the significant aspects of this problem. These hypothetical events should be regarded not as academic questions that would have arisen if facts had been different from what they actually were, but rather as models of what might happen in the future. In 1823, Jefferson wrote to a friend: "I have ever considered the constitutional mode of election ultimately by the legislature voting by states as the most dangerous blot on our constn, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit. . . .” The “unlucky chance" came to pass the next year; it is due again soon. Americans skirted the possibility in 1912 and 1924 as an incidental part of other political phenomena, but the southern Democrats have taken to flirting with the idea seriously. In 1944 some Texans talked about throwing the election to the House of Representatives. Four years later such a plan received significant support. Given another opportunity, not necessarily in southern hands, the scheme may work. Thus although the following treatment must be phrased in conjectural terms, the problem is a very real one. It has already diverted the stream of politics and now threatens a general pollution.

An elaboration of the following three points will convey an understand

1 To George Hay, August 17, 1823, in Paul L. Ford (ed.), The Works of Thomas Jefferson (New York: G. P. Putnain's Sons, 1905), XII, 303.

ing of the problems involved in the ultimate selection of the President by the lower house of Congress. (1) The composition of the House of Representatives, both constitutionally and politically, will determine the choice of a chief executive. (2) This situation involves a grievous threat to the integrity of the election process. (3) Finally, proposed reforms are generally inadequate if restricted to the present concept of indirect election.

CONSTITUTIONAL COMPOSITION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The constitutional provisions for the make-up of the House of Repre sentatives in the event that the election of a President devolves upon that body may be translated into modern terms as follows. The quorum requires the presence of at least one representative from each of thirty-two states. These might be drawn from the thirty-two smallest states, with a population of about fifty million people and a total of one hundred and forty-three representatives.

If the choice of a President ever fell to the House again, however, much more than a quorum would be present. The twenty-five smaller states could nevertheless control the decision. These states have a population of approximately thirty million people and eighty-six representatives. Even if there were no absentees, the vote of these states could be determined by as few as sixty-five representatives. In other words, sixty-five men from twenty-five states could out-vote the other three hundred and seventy representatives in the House. Men representing perhaps twentyfive million Americans would be stronger than those standing for the other one hundred and twenty-five million.

The small states have never yet developed a political interest different from that of their neighbors, and the twenty-five smaller states are stretched from Maine to Arizona and from Oregon to South Carolina. Every section of the country, except that which borders on the Great Lakes, is represented. It would be surprising indeed to see these states enter into a combination for partisan political purposes, but their power is described in order to explain the constitutional mechanics of an election by the House of Representatives. Whether the small states combine or not, each of the eighty-six representatives from the smaller states wields a far greater proportion of the forty-eight votes in the House on the occasion of the election of the President than does any one of his three hundred and forty-nine colleagues from the larger states. The gentleman from Nevada, for example, holds in his hand one forty-eighth of the total vote. His counterpart from a New York district with more than twice the population of Nevada, commands only 1-2064ths of the total.

POLITICAL COMPLEXION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Instead of a schism along the lines of the relative size of the states, the House of Representatives would probably produce a division according to political party affiliation. This is so likely that an analysis of the election of a President by that assembly may well proceed upon the assumption that most representatives would support their party's candidate. The chances are very great, however, that some members would be forced to change their vote in order for the House to effect a verdict. Although no prediction of the future composition of the lower chamber can be made, a good idea of the problems involved may be gleaned from a review of the political line-up in the House following the elections of 1912, 1924, and 1948. These are the three elections during the twentieth century when the electoral votes were divided among more than two candidates for the presidency.

A break-down of party membership in each state's delegation for each of these three years appears in Table I. The figures illustrate that domi

TABLE I

TWO-PARTY COMPOSITION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT THE TIME OF THE ELECTORAL COUNTS OF 1913, 1925, AND 1949*

1913

1925

1949

Times

State

Alabama