Government in the United States, National, State and Local Part 22

Representatives in Congress, as we have seen, are elected by districts, and hence the delegation in Congress from a particular state is often divided between Democrats and Republicans. But not so with Presidential electors; usually the party in the majority in the state, however small the majority, chooses all the electors. Thus when the Democratic party carried New York by a majority of hardly more than 1,000 votes in 1884, the entire electoral vote was counted for Cleveland.[62]

[62] It sometimes happens that the electoral vote of a state is divided, though the instances are rare. This may be due to the personal unpopularity of one of the electoral candidates of the majority party, or it may be due to the mistake of many voters in casting their ballots for the candidate for elector at the head of the ticket only, believing that they are thereby voting for the whole ticket. As a result of the former cause, Harrison received one vote in California in 1892, while Cleveland had the other eight. As a result chiefly of the latter blunder, Taft received only two electoral votes in Maryland in 1908, and Bryan received the other six. In 1916 the vote of West Virginia was divided, Wilson receiving one vote and Hughes the other seven.

Among the results of the rule which gives the entire electoral vote of the state to one of the candidates, notwithstanding the size of the vote polled by the other candidate, is that each party concentrates its efforts in the large "pivotal" states whose votes are decisive, and thereby bribery and fraud in such states are powerfully stimulated.

Candidates for the office of elector are nominated usually by the state conventions of each party. No senator or representative or any person holding an office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States is eligible to the office of elector. Congress, under the Const.i.tution, has power to fix the day on which the electors shall be chosen, and it has fixed the day as Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

_Electoral and Popular Vote._--Generally the candidate for President whose electors receive the largest popular vote will also receive the largest electoral vote; but this has not always happened, and usually there is only a rough correspondence between the popular vote and the electoral vote. Thus in 1860 Lincoln received only about forty per cent of the popular vote, though he received a substantial majority (about fifty-nine per cent) of the electoral vote. Again, in 1864 he received only about fifty-five per cent of the popular vote, but ninety-one per cent of the electoral vote. In 1912 Wilson received forty-two per cent of the popular vote, and eighty-two per cent of the electoral vote. Such discrepancies are due to the fact that the entire electoral vote of a state is usually cast for the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote of the state, however small it may be. A party, therefore, may carry enough states by small margins to secure a majority of the electors and yet be in a minority so far as the popular vote of the entire country is concerned.

=Choice of the President by the Electors.=--The electors, on the second Monday of January following their election, a.s.semble in their respective state capitals for the purpose of choosing the President.[63] The Const.i.tution as it now stands requires the electors to vote by ballot for President and by a distinct ballot vote for Vice President, and make separate lists of all persons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice President.

[63] The day on which the electors a.s.semble must be the same throughout the Union. The purpose of this requirement is to prevent deals or bargains among the electoral "colleges" of the different states.

Moreover, meeting on the same day, the action of one state cannot be used to influence that of another. In 1857 the electors of Wisconsin were prevented by a snowstorm from a.s.sembling at the state capital on the day fixed by law. On the day following they met and cast the vote of the state for Fremont. But when the question of counting Wisconsin's vote came up in Congress, objection was made that it had not been cast on the day prescribed by law. As the vote of the state was not decisive, the matter did not become serious.

_The Original Method._--The Const.i.tution as originally adopted did not require the electors in casting their ballots to indicate the person for whom they were voting as President and whom for Vice President, or to prepare distinct lists. The one who received the highest vote (if a majority) was to be President, and the one receiving the next highest number (whether a majority or not) was to be Vice President. The result of this method of choosing the President was that as soon as political parties were formed and the electors came to vote strictly on the basis of party there would be a tie between the two persons highest on the list, and as there was nothing to show on the record which was intended for President and which for Vice President there would be no election.

This happened in 1801, when Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three electoral votes, and the choice between them had to be made by the house of representatives as the Const.i.tution provides.

_Twelfth Amendment._--To remove the difficulty, the Twelfth Amendment was adopted in 1804, requiring the electors in preparing their ballots to indicate their choice for President and their choice for Vice President so that the person intended for the latter office could not be confused with the person intended for President. The amendment also requires a majority of the electoral vote to elect the Vice President as well as the President.

_Restrictions on the Electors._--In casting their votes the electors are prohibited from voting for candidates for both offices from the same state as themselves. The purpose of this provision is to prevent the electors from one state--if any state should ever become powerful enough--from choosing both the President and the Vice President from that state. This does not mean, however, that both the President and the Vice President could not be elected from the same state, since the electors of the other states are not prohibited from voting for two candidates from the same state.

_Formalities and Precautions._--The Const.i.tution requires the electors of each state to sign, certify, seal, and transmit to the president of the United States senate, a list of the votes cast for President and Vice President. The statutes also require two additional lists to be prepared, one to be sent to the president of the senate by special messenger, and the other to be deposited with the nearest United States district judge. These extra precautions are taken to prevent the loss of the state's votes through accident or otherwise. This done, the office of the Presidential elector expires and the electoral colleges cannot be again summoned to correct errors or to make a new choice in case the President elect should die before inauguration.

=Counting the Electoral Vote.=--The Const.i.tution directs that the votes transmitted to the president of the senate shall be opened in the presence of both houses of Congress and that the votes shall then be counted. The Const.i.tution does not say who shall count the votes.

Apparently the framers believed that the process of counting would never involve anything more than a simple act of addition. But in the course of time disputed returns began to be sent in, and then the process of counting came to involve the more difficult task of determining what should be counted. Thereupon the question was raised, who shall count?

Was the president of the senate to count and the two houses act merely as spectators, or was the president of the senate to open the votes and the two houses do the counting? For a long time, when the disputes were not serious enough to affect the result, the president of the senate was allowed to count the vote and proclaim the result.[64] In 1865 by a joint rule Congress a.s.sumed the right to count the electoral vote, thus taking the power away from the president of the senate.

[64] Thus Jefferson as president of the senate in 1801, counted the vote which elected him President of the United States and declared himself duly elected. So did Adams in 1797. Suppose there had been a serious dispute in either of these cases, could the president of the senate have counted for himself the votes in dispute?

_The Disputed Election of 1876._--In 1876 a serious election dispute arose, involving the presidency. Both Hayes and Tilden claimed to have been elected, and the result depended upon which of two conflicting lists of votes from Florida, Oregon, South Carolina, and Louisiana should be counted. Under the joint rule mentioned above, either house could reject a questionable vote. One of the houses was Democratic and the other Republican, and because of the great excitement over the matter, it was feared that the votes of many states might be rejected for trivial reasons. After much discussion, in the course of which many ugly threats were made, Congress agreed to the creation of an electoral commission, to decide the disputed votes. The commission was to consist of five senators, five representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court. As finally const.i.tuted it was composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, and by a strict party vote the commission decided in favor of Hayes in every case, thus insuring his election. The minority accepted the result, but not without protest and criticism.

_The Act of 1887._--After this decision, Congress took up the task of devising permanent rules for counting the electoral vote, and finally in 1887 it pa.s.sed an elaborate act which now regulates the electoral count.

In brief, it places the responsibility so far as possible on the state authorities, and provides that the determination of each state as to how its electoral vote was cast shall, under certain conditions, be final.

If, however, a state neglects to settle its own election contests, and double returns are transmitted to the president of the senate, the two houses of Congress sitting separately must determine how the votes shall be counted. But if the two houses fail to agree, as they did in counting the vote of 1876, then the vote of the state is lost. The day fixed by Congress for opening and counting the vote is the second Wednesday in February.

=Election by the House.=--In case no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the choice devolves upon the house of representatives. But in that case the house votes by states, each state having one vote, irrespective of its number of representatives, and the choice is made from the three candidates standing highest on the list.[65] A quorum for the election of a President by the house consists of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and the vote of a majority of all the states is necessary to a choice.

[65] It was from the five highest before the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804.

_Objections to Election by the House._--The objections to this method of choice are obvious. It is undemocratic, because the house on which the choice would devolve in any case would be, not the new house chosen at the recent election, but the old house, which might indeed, as has often happened, be in the hands of the political party defeated at the late election. In the second place, under such a scheme, New York with a population over 100 times as great as that of Nevada would have no larger share in choosing the executive. In 1873, for example, had the choice devolved upon the house, it would have been possible for 45 members (being a majority of the representatives of nineteen states) to determine the choice in spite of the wishes of the other 247 members.

Finally, the state delegations in the house might be equally divided politically, and hence fail to elect.[66]

[66] This would have happened in 1912; 22 state delegations were Republican, 22 were Democratic, and 4 were equally divided.

_Instances of Choice by the House._--Twice has the electoral college failed to make a choice, thus giving the election to the house of representatives.

In 1801, there was a tie between Jefferson and Burr, each having the vote of a majority of the electors. There were then sixteen states, of which eight voted for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two were evenly divided. On the thirty-sixth ballot the two divided states voted for Jefferson and he was elected, as the electors had originally intended.

The second instance occurred in 1825, when the electoral vote stood as follows: for Jackson 99; for Adams 84; for Crawford 41; and for Clay 37, no one having a majority. Under the Twelfth Amendment Clay was dropped from the list and the choice was confined to the three highest candidates. There were then twenty-four states, and of these the representatives of thirteen voted for Adams, seven for Jackson, and four for Crawford.

=Election of the Vice President by the Senate.=--The Const.i.tution also provides that if no candidate for Vice President receives a majority of the electoral vote the choice shall devolve upon the senate, in which case the election shall be made from the two highest on the list. Two thirds of the senate const.i.tute a quorum for this purpose, and a majority of the whole number is necessary to a choice. Only once has the choice devolved upon the senate, namely, in 1836, when Richard M.

Johnson, candidate for Vice President on the ticket with Mr. Van Buren, failed to receive a majority of the electoral vote. He was promptly elected by the senate.

=Methods of Nomination.=--Neither the Const.i.tution nor the laws of the United States make any provision in regard to the nomination of the candidates for President and Vice President. That is left entirely to the regulation of the political parties themselves. In the early history of the republic, before political parties had risen, no nominating machinery was devised, for none was needed.

_Early Methods._--With the rise of political parties, however, the method of nomination by congressional caucus was introduced; that is, the members of Congress belonging to each political party a.s.sumed the power of selecting its candidate in secret conclave. In this way Jefferson was nominated by the Republican members of Congress in 1800 and 1804, Madison in 1808 and 1812, and Monroe in 1816 and 1820. In the same way the Federalist members put forward their candidates. In some cases, however, presidential candidates were nominated by state legislatures. In the course of time, strong opposition grew up against the method of nomination by members of Congress, and after 1824 the caucus system was never again resorted to. The new nominating machinery which took its place was the national convention, which came into use between 1831 and 1840.

=The National Convention.=--A national convention to nominate candidates for President and Vice President is composed of delegates from each state and territory in the Union, the number to which each is ent.i.tled being usually twice its number of senators and representatives in Congress.[67] Altogether the national convention consists of about 1,000 delegates. For each delegate there is an alternate who attends the convention and in case of the absence of the delegate, takes his place.

[67] Apportionment of delegates among the states on the basis of their representation in Congress bears no relation to the party strength. For some years there has been a growing sentiment in the ranks of the Republican party in favor of reducing the representation in the national convention of the Southern states where the Republican party is practically nonexistent. In December, 1913, the Republican national committee adopted a resolution prescribing that representation in the national convention of 1916 should to a certain extent be based on the number of the voters of the party in each congressional district. The effect was to reduce the number of southern delegates by eighty-seven, and the number of northern delegates by seven. The basis of representation in the Democratic convention, however, remains unchanged.

Formerly the four delegates-at-large of each party were chosen by the state convention, and the other delegates by congressional district conventions. When direct primary laws were introduced, some states provided that the latter delegates should be selected by the voters of each party at the primary, leaving the delegates-at-large to be chosen as formerly by the state convention. In 1912 a number of states pa.s.sed what are known as "presidential preference primary" laws under which delegates to the national conventions of that year were chosen. Some of these laws permit the voters to choose their delegates to the national convention but without allowing them to indicate their preference for any presidential candidate; others allow a direct expression of the popular preference for presidential candidates but make no provision for binding the delegates to nominate the candidate preferred by the majority of the voters; some, however, provide both for an expression of the popular preference and for binding the delegates to the national convention. More than one third of the states now have laws of one or another of these three types.

_The Time and Place_ for holding the national convention are fixed by the national committee. The date usually falls in the latter part of June or early in July of the year the President is to be elected, and the place is usually some large city centrally located.

=Procedure of a National Convention.=--The convention is usually held in some s.p.a.cious building especially erected for the purpose. Besides the delegations of the states, there are the alternates, hundreds of politicians who are not delegates, newspaper reporters, and thousands of spectators from all parts of the country, for all of whom accommodations are needed.

_Organization of the Convention._--The convention is called to order by the chairman of the national committee, and the secretary of the committee reads the call for the convention. Next come the choice of a temporary chairman, and the appointment and report of committees on credentials, on permanent organization, on rules, and on resolutions much as in the state conventions described on pp. 153-155.

_The Platform_ is a series of resolutions commending the national administration, or denouncing it, as the case may be, and setting forth the position of the party on the political issues of the day.

Declarations are often made in the platform to attract or conciliate large ma.s.ses of voters, sometimes when there is no real intention of carrying them out. The platform is usually adopted by the convention as reported by the committee on resolutions, but sometimes important changes are made on the floor after a spirited contest.

_The Nominations._--After the adoption of the platform, the nomination of candidates for President is in order. The clerk calls the roll of the states in alphabetical order so that each is given an opportunity to present the name of its choice. The vote is then taken by a roll call of the states, the chairman of each state delegation usually announcing the vote of the state. Under the rules of the Republican party the delegates vote as individuals, so that the vote of a state is often divided between two or more candidates, unless the conventions which appointed the delegates have instructed them to cast the vote of the state for a particular candidate. According to the "unit rule" of the Democratic party, the state delegations vote as units and not as individuals, so that there is no division of a state's vote; the majority of each delegation determines how the votes of the state shall be cast.[68] The rules of the Democratic and Republican parties also differ in the majority necessary to nominate a candidate.

[68] The convention of 1912 excepted certain states from this rule.

_The Vote Necessary to Nominate._--According to the rules of the Republican party, a majority of the delegates is sufficient to nominate, but under the rules of the Democratic party the concurrence of two thirds of the delegates is required. Thus if there are 1,000 delegates in the convention, 501 may nominate under the Republican rule, while 667 would be required under the rules of the Democratic party. The large majority necessary to nominate in the Democratic convention has often resulted in the defeat of the leading candidate and the nomination of a "dark horse," that is, a candidate whose name has not been previously presented to the convention or which has not been prominently kept before it. Presidents Polk and Pierce were nominated in this way.

_Nomination of Vice President._--Usually there is little contest over the nomination of the Vice President, the nomination usually being given to some one supported by a defeated faction or group of the party, or to a particular section of the country. Thus if the presidential nomination goes to an Eastern man, the vice presidential nomination is likely to be given to a Western man. In view of the comparatively large number of Presidents who have died in office it is to be regretted that so little consideration is given to the nomination of candidates for Vice President.

_Notification of the Candidates._--The candidates are formally notified some weeks later by a committee specially appointed for the purpose. The nominee in a formal speech accepts the nomination and pledges himself to support the platform. Usually this is followed by a letter of acceptance in which the views of the nominee are elaborated more at length. This completes the formalities of nomination, and the next step is to inaugurate the campaign for the election of the nominees.

=Conduct of a Presidential Campaign.=--_The National Committee._--The main task of managing the campaign falls on the chairman of the national committee. This committee is made up of one member from each state and territory, and is chosen by the national convention which nominates the candidates.[69] The chairman is usually an experienced political leader with a wide acquaintanceship, and is a trusted friend of the presidential candidate, by whom, in fact, he is usually selected.

[69] In reality each state delegation names one of its own number as the national committeeman from the state, and the committee thus const.i.tuted is appointed by the convention.

Soon after the adjournment of the convention, the national committee meets and organizes. In addition to the national chairman a treasurer and a secretary are chosen. The treasurer raises and has custody of the enormous funds expended in the conduct of the campaign. As the national chairman may be compared to a general who commands the forces, the treasurer is the man who raises the sinews of the war.

_Work of the National Committee._--The headquarters of the committee are usually established in New York city, with branch offices in Chicago or Washington, though during the campaign of 1908 the princ.i.p.al headquarters were located in Chicago. The work of the committee is usually divided among bureaus or divisions, one of which has charge of the mailing of campaign literature, another is engaged in the tabulation of reports, another looks after the employment and a.s.signment of speakers, another has charge of the organization of voters' clubs throughout the country, etc.[70] Large quant.i.ties of campaign literature, consisting of a "Campaign textbook," speeches of the candidates or of members of Congress, pamphlets, leaflets, posters, lithographs, and in fact everything calculated to influence the voters, are sent broadcast throughout the country and particularly in the close or doubtful states where the princ.i.p.al efforts of the committee are concentrated.[71]

[70] In 1908, the Democratic national committee had a labor bureau to look after the labor vote, and a committee on college men's clubs to look after the organization of college students into voters' clubs.

[71] In 1908, more than one million copies of Mr. Bryan's speech "Shall the People Rule" were distributed, printed in all languages spoken in the United States. Another million copies of his speeches on the trusts, the tariff, guarantee of bank deposits, and injunctions were also circulated.

_Activity of the Presidential Candidate._--Formerly it was not considered proper for the presidential candidates themselves to take an active part in the campaign by traveling about the country and making speeches, but in recent years there has been a change in this respect.

Mr. Bryan in 1896 traveled about the country and delivered hundreds of speeches in behalf of his candidacy, and he pursued a similar course in 1900 and again in 1908 when he was the Democratic candidate. In the latter year, Mr. Taft, the Republican candidate, likewise entered actively into the campaign and delivered more than 400 speeches in thirty different states. In 1912 Mr. Wilson and Mr. Roosevelt made extensive campaign tours and delivered many speeches. Similar tours were made in later campaigns.

=Raising and Expenditure of Campaign Funds.=--The management of a national political campaign requires the expenditure of large sums of money for printing, postage, telegrams, express, rent of halls, music, expenses of speakers, organizing clubs, and the like. This money is spent solely under the direction of the national chairman, who until recently was not required to render an account of the moneys contributed for this purpose.