Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
Starting with the
election of 1804, each Presidential election has been conducted under the Twelfth Amendment. Only once since then has the House of Representatives chosen the President in a
contingent election. It was necessary to do so when no candidate won an
absolute majority (131 at the time) of electoral votes in the
1824 election:
Andrew Jackson received 99 electoral votes,
John Quincy Adams (son of
John Adams) 84,
William H. Crawford 41, and
Henry Clay 37. As the House could only consider the top three candidates, Clay was excluded. Crawford's poor health following a
stroke made his election by the House unlikely. Jackson expected the House to vote for him, as he had won a plurality of both the popular
[C] and electoral votes. Instead, the House elected Adams on the first ballot with thirteen states, followed by Jackson with seven and Crawford with four.
[23]Clay had endorsed Adams for the Presidency; the endorsement carried additional weight because Clay was the
Speaker of the House. When Adams later appointed Clay his Secretary of State, many—particularly Jackson and his supporters—accused the pair of making a "
Corrupt Bargain".
[24][25] In the less contested election for vice president,
John C. Calhoun received 182 electoral votes and was elected outright.
In
1836, the
Whig Party nominated different candidates in different regions in the hopes of splintering the electoral vote and denying
Martin Van Buren, the Democratic candidate, a majority in the Electoral College, thereby throwing the election into the Whig-controlled House. However, this strategy failed with Van Buren winning majorities of both the popular and electoral vote. In that same election no candidate for Vice President secured an absolute majority in the electoral college as Democratic Vice Presidential nominee
Richard Mentor Johnson did not receive the electoral votes of Democratic electors from
Virginia, because of his relationship with a former slave. As a result, Johnson received 147 electoral votes, one vote short of a majority; to be followed by
Francis Granger with 77,
John Tyler with 47 and
William Smithwith 23. Thus it became necessary for the Senate to choose whether Johnson or Granger would be the new Vice President. Johnson won with 33 votes, with Granger receiving 16.
[26]
Since 1836, no major U.S. party has nominated multiple regional presidential or vice presidential candidates in an election. However, since the
Civil War there have been two serious attempts by
Southern-based parties to run regional candidates in hopes of denying either of the two major candidates an electoral college majority. Both attempts (in
1948 and
1968) failed, but not by much—in both cases a shift in the result of two close states would have forced the respective elections into the House.
[27][28]
In modern elections, a running mate is often selected in order to appeal to a different set of voters. A Habitation Clause issue arose during the
2000 presidential election contested by
George W. Bush (running-mate
Dick Cheney) and
Al Gore (running-mate
Joe Lieberman), because it was alleged that Bush and Cheney were both inhabitants of
Texas and that the Texas electors therefore violated the Twelfth Amendment in casting their ballots for both. Texas' 32 electoral votes were necessary in order to secure Bush and Cheney a majority in the Electoral College. With the Democrats
picking up four seats in the Senate to equal the Republicans at 50 seats each in the chamber, the outcome of a contingent election in the Senate, especially if it had happened after the newly-elected Senators had been seated, would have been far from certain. Such an election in 2000, had it happened, would have determined which party controlled the Senate.
Bush's residency was unquestioned, as he was
Governor of Texas at the time. However, Cheney and his wife had moved to Dallas five years earlier when he assumed the role of chief executive at
Halliburton. Cheney grew up in Wyoming, had represented it in Congress and had continuously maintained a residence in the state during his tenure at Halliburton. A few months before the election, he switched his voter registration and driver's license to
Wyoming and put his home in Dallas up for sale. Three Texas voters challenged the election in a federal court in Dallas and then appealed the decision to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where it was dismissed.
[29]
