The Electoral College Today

Abstract

Today’s Electoral College and the one created by the Founding Fathers are two different election mechanisms. The Founding Fathers might have expected that the Electoral College would only select the candidates for both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency, and Congress would choose both executives from among the selected candidates. In any case, the equality of the states in electing both executives in Congress was supposed to compensate for the inequality of the states in the Electoral College. Chapter 2 discusses the current election system and attempts to help the reader comprehend whether this system is a historical anachronism or a unique element of the system of “checks and balances” embedded in the Constitution. This chapter presents a list of constitutional articles and amendments relating to the election system, along with a brief description of how each of these parts of the Constitution affects the functioning of the system. It discusses the basic principles of the current election system, along with seven puzzles of the Twelfth Amendment that have remained unsolved since its ratification in 1804.