Presidential Elections

AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS determine who is elected president and vice president of the United States. Local election boards throughout the 50 states and the District of Columbia administer presidential elections, and Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, as amended by the Twelfth, Twenty-Second, and Twenty-Third amendments, prescribe the general requirements for how the president and vice president are to be elected. Presidential elections are held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (established by Congress in 1854).

Although Americans go to the polls on Election Day to select the presidential and vice presidential candidates of their choice, they actually do not vote for these candidates directly. Rather, they vote for a list of party electors who have pledged to vote for their party's candidates in a separate election. The winning electors from each state make up the Electoral College. Thus, in the American presidential election system, the general electorate indirectly chooses the winning ticket by voting for electors who directly elect the president and the vice president. On Election Day, Americans also elect the entire U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate, as well as many state and local officials.

The selected electors then meet in their respective state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are sent to the nation's capital to be officially counted and certified by the president of the Senate (who is also the vice president of the United States) in front of a joint session of Congress the following sixth of January. The presidential and vice presidential candidates who receive a majority of the Electoral College vote are declared the winners, and assume their duties at noon on January 20th.

If no candidate wins a majority of the electoral vote, then the presidential election is decided by the U.S. House of Representatives (from among the three candidates receiving the largest number of electoral votes), with each state having one vote. The vice presidential election is decided by the U.S. Senate (from the two candidates receiving the largest number of electoral votes), with each senator having one vote. The presidential elections of 1800 and 1824, and the vice presidential election of 1836, are the only elections that have been decided in this manner. In 1800, running mates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received the same number [Page 669]of votes (as votes for the presidency were not differentiated from votes for the vice presidency until passage of the 12th Amendment in 1804). The House of Representatives elected Jefferson as president, and Burr became vice president. In 1824, when no candidate received a majority of the Electoral College vote, the House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams as president; despite the fact that Andrew Jackson had won a plurality, but not a majority, of both the electoral and the popular vote. In 1836, no vice presidential candidate received a majority of the Electoral College vote, and the Senate decided the election.

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