He Main Committee on Postponed Questions (either Unfinished Pieces Committee) stood out in summer of 1787when the delegates of The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia wrote the Constitution of the United States. This commission served to lighten the debates, which was delegated to address unfinished issues.. Among them, how to elect a president, since all the delegates agreed that they did not want a king to lead the new country they were creating. They wanted a president, but they didn’t know how to elect him: they chose the Electoral College.
At first, it was thought that the election of the president would fall to the legislative branch. The Electoral College was proposed towards the end of the Convention by the Main Committee on Postponed Questionschaired by David Brearley of New Jersey, to establish a system that would select the most qualified president and vice president. Among the reasons for choosing the Electoral College are concerns about the separation of powers and the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, the balance between small and large states, slavery, and the perceived dangers of direct democracy. One of the Electoral College’s proponents, Alexander Hamilton, argued that while it was not perfect, it was “at least excellent.”.
He Main Committee on Postponed Questions It was made up of one member from each state present at the Constitutional Convention, which then numbered 11: they elected Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire; King Rufus of Massachusetts; Roger Sherman of Connecticut; Jonathan Brearly New Jersey; Governor Morris of Pennsylvania; John Dickinson of Delaware; Daniel Carroll of Maryland; James Madison, Jr. of Virginia; Hugh Williamson of North Carolina; Pierce Butler of South Carolina; and Abraham Baldwin of Georgia. The chairman of the committee was Brearly, of New Jersey. Governor Morrisof Pennsylvania, took the initiative to explain how and why this method was chosen.
First of all, six of the 11 members preferred popular national elections to elect the president. But they realized that they could not ratify the Constitution with this provision: the Southern states would not accept it. For this reason, they opted for a system of electors, through which the people and the states would elect the president.
Article II, section 1, of The Constitution stipulated that people in the states could choose their electors as they wished. and in number equal to their representation in Congress (senators plus representatives of the Lower House). Then, these voters, each representing one electoral vote, would choose for two people: the one who received the greatest number of votesprovided that it is the majority of the number of voters, would be elected presidentand the person receiving the second highest number of votes would become vice president.
If no one received a majority, the presidency of the United States would be decided by the House of Representatives, voting by state and choosing from the five candidates with the most votes. The Senate would break the tie for the vice presidency.
In 1800, the Party loyalty made Democratic and Republican voters They will vote for their candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. There was a tie since the two candidates ended up together on the ballot papers: The framers of the Constitution did not provide a separate option for the president and vice president.. So they turned to the House of Representatives to break the tie. Controlled by the Federalists, they elected Thomas Jefferson, who was the third president of the United States, as president.
The development of political parties coincided with the expansion of popular elections. By 1836, all states elected their electors by direct popular vote, except South Carolina, which did not do so until after the American Civil War.
To elect voters, most states have adopted a general list system. The winner of a state’s popular vote received its entire electoral vote. Only Maine and Nebraska opted for another method, instead awarding electoral votes to the winner in each House district and a bonus of two electoral votes to the winner at the state level.
The system ofwinner takes all” (“all to the winner”) generally favored majority parties over minority parties, large states over small ones, and cohesive groups of voters concentrated in large states over those more dispersed across the country.
