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Basic Constitutional Concepts
Burr seized the opportunity—and was defeated only with difficulty. After that, the Twelfth Amendment (1804) eliminated the possibility of such
a situation by specifying that the electors ‘‘shall name in their ballots the
person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for
as Vice President.’’
The Electoral College itself, surviving the Twelfth Amendment, has
endured to the present day, and the President must be chosen by the vote
of each State, rather than by a national popular vote. This means that
each State continues to choose a number of electors equivalent to the
number of U.S. Senators and Representatives that that particular State
sends to Congress. Usually, though not in all presidential elections, the
national popular vote for candidates and the vote of the Electoral College
would have the same result; but it remains theoretically possible, under
peculiar circumstances, for a candidate to be chosen President by receiving a majority of Electoral College votes though a minority of the
popular vote.
Why so elaborate a scheme for choosing the President? Because the
Framers