The president and vice president are elected through the Electoral College. Voters in each state choose electors, who then cast separate votes for president and vice president. The votes are then sent to Congress, where they are counted before winners are declared.
A candidate must win a majority of electoral votes to become president. If no candidate wins a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president from the top three candidates, with each state receiving one vote. If no candidate wins a majority for vice president, the Senate chooses between the top two candidates.
The Electoral College first appeared in Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution. Originally, the candidate with the most electoral votes became president, while the candidate with the second-highest vote total became vice president. As a result, the president and vice president could come from different political parties. In 1796, Federalist John Adams became president, and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, who finished second, became vice president.
On June 15, 1804, the states ratified the Twelfth Amendment, which changed the Electoral College system to allow separate votes for president and vice president. Under the amendment, parties could also nominate a team to run the executive branch.
The Electoral College helps protect the United States against the threat of mob rule. John Adams penned “An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power,” warning against pure democracy:
“Democracy, will soon degenerate into an Anarchy, such an Anarchy that every Man will do what is right in his own Eyes, and no Mans life or Property or Reputation or Liberty will be secure and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral Virtues, and Intellectual Abilities, all the Powers of Wealth, Beauty, Wit, and Science, to the wanton Pleasures, the capricious Will, and the execrable Cruelty of one or a very few.”
