05 September 2008

When the Electoral Vote and the Popular Vote Differ

 

In February 1877, Congress counted the electoral votes after the contested Tilden-Hayes election.

Four times in U.S. history, the Electoral College system resulted in election of a candidate for president who had received fewer popular votes nationwide than another candidate.

Thomas H. Neale is a specialist in American national government who produces reports for Congress at the Congressional Research Service.

By Thomas H. Neale

Since the first U.S. presidential election in 1788, the Electoral College system has delivered “the people’s choice” in 51 of 55 contests, but on four occasions the Electoral College gave controversial results. Three of these elections, 1876, 1888, and 2000, produced a president and vice president who won a majority of the electoral vote but fewer popular votes than their principal opponents. In 1824, there was no Electoral College majority, and the House of Representatives elected the president.

1824: A Corrupt Bargain?

The impending retirement of President James Monroe signaled a major shift in U.S. politics as the election of 1824 approached. The two political parties of that era were called the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. For the previous quarter-century, the Democratic Republican Party had controlled the White House, while the Federalist Party withered away. By 1824, however, the Democratic Republican Party showed signs of splintering: States were expanding the right to vote, the established order was being questioned, and change was in the air. Unable to agree on a consensus nominee, Democratic Republican factions nominated four candidates: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Treasury Secretary William Crawford, the establishment choices; Senator Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans; and Henry Clay, powerful speaker of the House of Representatives.

After a spirited campaign -- conducted by surrogates because it was considered demeaning for the candidates to engage in retail politicking -- the results were hopelessly divided. Jackson had the most popular and electoral votes, followed by Adams, then Crawford and Clay, but none of the four commanded an Electoral College majority. Under these circumstances, the Constitution required the House of Representatives to choose the president, with each state delegation casting just one vote. Furthermore, since only the three top candidates were eligible, Clay was eliminated.

By the time Congress assembled in Washington in December 1824, the divided election results were known, but the official announcement was not scheduled until February 9, 1825, so for two months the capital seethed with political speculation and backroom maneuvers. It became clear that Crawford, who was recovering from a stroke, was out of the running and that the contest would be decided between Adams and Jackson.

The front-runners presented a stark contrast: Adams, a Harvard graduate from Massachusetts in New England, was a seasoned diplomat and son of a president, while Jackson was a rough-hewn politician from Tennessee in what was then the West, a military hero and a man who had fought several duels. House Speaker Clay, who held the balance of power, negotiated with supporters of both Jackson and Adams, but he and the New Englander shared similar policies, and both deeply mistrusted Jackson. After the two held a long private meeting in January, Clay’s support for Adams became known. Two weeks later, a letter in a Philadelphia newspaper asserted that Clay agreed to back Adams in return for the position of secretary of state if Adams won. A storm of charges and countercharges followed, with Jackson supporters accusing Clay and Adams of a “corrupt bargain.”

On February 9, Congress assembled to count the electoral votes. As expected, Jackson won 99 electoral votes, 32 short of the 131 then needed to win, while Adams claimed 84, Crawford, 41, and Clay, 37. With the results declared, the House turned to its constitutional duty, with none other than Henry Clay presiding in his position as speaker. At that time, when the Union comprised 24 states, 13 state delegation votes were needed to win; early reports indicated that 12 states favored Adams, one short of a majority.

Jackson hoped to stop Adams on the first round, gain Crawford supporters, and then put some of the New Englander’s states into play. The key was New York State, whose House delegation was evenly split, with one representative undecided. The morning of the count session, Clay and Representative Daniel Webster from Adams’s home state invited the wavering New Yorker to Speaker Clay’s private office. Clay and Webster were famous for their persuasive oratory, and whatever they said must have worked: When the roll was called, New York was in the Adams column, putting him over the top. The final results were 13 state votes for Adams, 7 for Jackson, and 4 for Crawford.

Eleven days later, Adams announced that Clay would be his secretary of state, giving fresh credence to the corrupt bargain charge. Adams and Clay always denied it, but, true or not, the charge overshadowed Adams’s presidency. It both enraged and energized Jackson and his supporters, who started planning Jackson’s next presidential campaign immediately. Four years later, the Tennessean was vindicated when he soundly defeated Adams in the 1828 election.

1876: The Compromise of 1877

In 1876, the Republican Party of the late President Abraham Lincoln (nicknamed the Grand Old Party, or GOP) had dominated the presidency for 16 years, but GOP control was in jeopardy. The country was mired in a severe economic depression for the fourth year in a row. President Ulysses S. Grant was retiring after two terms dominated by a succession of political scandals. The Democrats, once disgraced by their Civil War association with the rebellious South, had regained strength and confidence, winning a majority in the House of Representatives in 1874. And white southern voters were demanding the withdrawal of federal troops stationed in the former Confederacy to enforce Reconstruction, the federal government’s policy for guaranteeing political rights to the ex-slaves and safeguarding Republican state governments imposed after the war.

Meeting in their national conventions, the Democrats nominated Governor Samuel Tilden of New York for president, while the Republicans picked Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. Both men had reputations as reformers, and the two parties offered similar platforms advocating honest government and civil service reform. The general election campaign was dominated by mudslinging and by charge and countercharge, while the nominees remained above the fray, leaving attack politics to surrogates and the highly partisan newspapers of the day.

More than eight million voters turned out on election day, November 7. By evening, results arriving by telegraph showed a strong Democratic trend. Republican strongholds fell to Tilden, and by morning, he appeared to have won 17 states by a popular vote margin of at least 250,000, for 184 electoral votes, at that time just one short of a majority. Hayes was behind with 18 states and 165 electoral votes, but Republican Party hopes revived when returns showed narrow leads for Hayes in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, which controlled 19 votes. Local Democrats disputed the results, asserting that federal troops had tainted the election; the GOP countered with claims that black Republican voters had been kept from the polls by force in many places. Bitterly divided, each state sent two contradictory certificates of election results to Congress.

A fierce battle over the disputed returns was predicted, with supporters of both candidates threatening violence. Congress responded in January 1877 by establishing a bipartisan electoral commission made up of senators, representatives, and Supreme Court justices. The commission would determine which slate of disputed electors had the better claim. On February 1, Congress met to count the electoral votes; the disputed returns were referred to the commission, which painstakingly examined each of them. The process continued for more than a month, but in every case the commission voted by the narrowest margin to accept the Republican electors. On March 2, the last votes were awarded to Hayes, who was declared elected by a one-vote margin, 185 to Tilden’s 184.

Despite widespread discontent among Democrats, the streets remained quiet: Over the previous month, party political operatives had worked out an agreement behind closed doors, the Compromise of 1877. Tilden and the Democratic Party accepted a GOP victory, while Hayes pledged to withdraw federal troops from the states of the former Confederacy, effectively ending Reconstruction. With the departure of the army, Republican governments in the South fell as former slaves were prevented from voting by legal maneuvers, intimidation, and terrorism. Loss of the vote was quickly followed by segregation laws and other discrimination against blacks, and it would be eight decades before the nation redressed the legacy of 1877.

1888: Out and In

The presidential election of 1888 saw less of the high political drama that characterized the other Electoral College controversies. Incumbent President Grover Cleveland of New York, a Democrat, was renominated on a platform of continued civil service reform and tariff reduction. The Republican Party, defenders of the tariff, which benefited U.S. industry but kept consumer prices high, chose Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, grandson of President William Henry Harrison.

Cleveland sat out the election campaign, relying on surrogates to carry his message to the public. Harrison, by contrast, delivered dozens of political speeches from his home, conducting perhaps the first “front porch” campaign. The campaign itself may have been one of the more corrupt in U.S. history, with both sides accused of buying and selling votes, engaging in political dirty tricks, and adjusting election returns to deliver votes as needed.

On November 6, more than 11 million Americans cast their votes. A close election was expected, and the returns showed Cleveland had outpolled the Republican candidate by 5,540,000 popular votes to 5,440,000. Harrison, however, had won the election on the strength of a comfortable electoral vote majority, 233 to 168.

What had gone wrong? Cleveland won the southern states with huge popular vote margins but lost many northern ones by only a few thousand votes each. Harrison was inaugurated without much controversy on March 4, 1889, but four years later Cleveland made another run, and this time he was successful, returning to the White House in 1893.

2000: The Supreme Court Steps In

Few U.S. presidential contests have ended as acrimoniously as the election of 2000. Even now, after nearly a decade, emotions run high among committed partisans of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore when discussion turns to the subjects of “dimples,” under-votes, “hanging chads,” or the Supreme Court’s ruling that ended the recount process in Florida.

The general election campaign, though hard fought, gave little indication of the controversy to come. According to most polls, Governor Bush of Texas held a narrow lead, but Vice President Gore appeared to be closing the gap. Two minor party candidates presented a complicating factor: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s Green Party was perceived as drawing support from Gore voters, while Patrick Buchanan, nominee of the Reform Party, was expected to cut into Bush’s popular vote.

More than 105 million Americans cast votes for president on November 7; by early evening it was clear that the election would be close. Gore held a slight popular vote lead nationwide, and the electoral vote was also tight, standing at 246 electoral votes for Bush and 255 for Gore, with 37 undecided in three states. New Mexico and Oregon, with 12 votes, were eventually declared for Gore, but Florida, with 25 decisive electoral votes and where Bush held a tiny lead, remained in contention.

Reports of confusing ballots and other irregularities led to demands for statewide and county recounts in Florida. The national Democratic and Republican parties dispatched teams of lawyers and political operatives to make their case in the courts and media. Acrimonious and widely publicized disputes over the recounts dominated the news for weeks, and both parties filed suit in Florida state and federal courts. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking: Federal law required Florida to declare its electoral vote by December 12.

After a series of starts and stops and conflicting lower court decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five to four that Florida’s recount procedures violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and that, since there was no time to devise and implement a different plan, the vote would stand. The court’s decision was assailed by Gore supporters as politically biased in favor of the Republican Party, but the recounts ended and George Bush was declared the winner in Florida with a margin of 537 votes. Nationwide, Bush won 271 electoral votes to Al Gore’s 266, but Gore had received about 540,000 more popular votes.

Although bitterly disappointed, Vice President Gore accepted the results and urged his supporters to respect the Supreme Court's decision in the best interests of the nation. A number of representatives contested the results when Congress met to count the electoral vote on January 6, 2001, but they lacked Senate co-sponsors and were disallowed by Gore, who as vice president presided over the session. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, the first U.S. president in more than a century who failed to win a plurality of the popular vote.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government or the policies or findings of the Congressional Research Service.