WI: No Electoral vote, any other changes in elections beside that?

If the founders did not put the idea of an electoral college in the constitution, or if it were abolished after 1824, 1876, 1888 or 2000, would there be any changes to the elections after that?
 
What is the alternative?

There was actually a different system before the 12th Amendment, though it still involved electoral votes. It would be somewhat interesting to discuss what would have happened if the original idea had been kept, or how it could be kept, but this almost ASB since it was really unworkable.

The obvious alternative of direct election by nationwide popular vote is actually also ASB. The framers were not (small d) democrats. The first time you might get this into the constitution is if they did a constitutional convention after the Civil War, instead of pretending that the original structure was still in place and addressing a few of the more obvious problems with amendments. You might get it as part of the progressive package of reforms in the early 20th century, and after that you need a reversal (popular vote and electoral vote going different ways) that instead of people just shrugging and accepting, leads to civil war or comes close to it.

If the POD is the original 1787 convention, the main alternative really is election of the President by the Congress, or some different version of the Electoral College. I could see just skipping the Electoral College and just going straight to what happens if the Electoral College is deadlocked (which the framers thought would be the normal situation), election of the President by the House of Representatives on the basis of state delegations, and election of the Vice President by the Senate.

So this really depends what is adopted as the alternative. Election by Congress, the likeliest alternative, creates tons of butterflies.
 
This is somewhat besides the point, but the usual list of Electoral College reversals is not what it seems to be, instances where one candidate won the popular vote and another candidate won the Electoral College.

Initially, the electors were chosen by state legislatures, not the popular vote in that state, and this was used intermittently in some states up to 1876. I don't think we even have nationwide popular vote totals before 1824.

Of the reversal list:

1824 Jackson won low pluralities in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. A candidate getting a plurality in both the popular vote and the Electoral College in a multi-candidate election isn't really a reversal, though the Jacksonians put out alot of propeganda saying otherwise. In fact, this was the only election in American history where the system worked as the authors of the 12th Amendment intended. Alot of states still had their electors chosen by the state legislatures.

1876 The Electoral College margin for Hayes depended on the Colorado electors, who were chosen by the state legislature and not the popular vote. Tilden won the Electors chosen by popular vote straight out. This ignores of course the pretty obvious fraud committed on behalf of Hayes. Tilden was actually the only candidate between 1872 and 1896 to get a nationwide popular vote majority.

1888 Pretty obvious fraud committed by the Republicans in New York, which was much remarked on at the time.

1960 Most people don't even view this as a reversal. Actually there is an argument that it is, depending on which method is used to apportion votes between slates of electors in Alabama (some weren't committed to vote for Kennedy and wound not not doing so).

2000 There is of course the argument that the popular vote in Florida was never counted properly and Gore won the state

So aside from 1824, every example of a reversal involves something dodgy happening in particular states. For statistical reasons, its really hard to get a reversal in a clean election.
 
This thread actually belongs in the "before 1900" discussion, unless you really intend the POD to be getting rid of the Electoral College at some point in the twentieth century.
 
A fact that is insufficiently recognized is that at the Constitutional Convention, the big issue in electing the president was *not* between direct popular vote and the Electoral College, but between popular vote (whether directly or through an electoral college ) and election by Congress. The obvious problem with direct popular election is that it would put the southern states at a disadvantage--even one as large as Virginia, for as Hugh Williamson of North Carolina remarked, "Her slaves will have no suffrage."
http://books.google.com/books?id=n0oWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32

One might think that the advocates of legislative election based their arguments on the idea that the legislature should be supreme, but that was not really the case. The delegates quickly decided that the president should be independent of the legislature, but almost until the end of the Convention the small states still favored legislative election, which they felt would be more beneficial to their states and, as Williamson argued, not inconsistent with executive independence, given a fixed salary for the president and no possibility of re-election. What was ultimately decided on was a compromise satisfactory to the legislative-election advocates, not only because the Electoral College was based on legislative apportionment--with the resulting advantage to the small states, especially thanks to the two electoral votes each state got for its Senate representation--but also because it was widely assumed that in most elections, no candidate would get a majority, and the race would go into the House, to be decided on a one-delegation, one-vote basis.

Contrary to the widespread belief that the Electoral College was meant as an "elitist" anti-democratic measure, the most avid supporters of the Electoral College were the advocates of popular election. They felt that the Electoral College was the closest one could get to a popular-election plan that could actually pass the Convention, given that small states had the balance of power there, and given the practical difficulties posed by differences in electoral laws and conditions from state to state--and especially the obvious difficulty pointed out by Williamson on how direct elections would limit the power of the slave states. James Wilson who as early as June 1 had called for popular election of the president, on June 2 called for election by electors chosen by the people, "but this was not meant as a significant change and was never really considered as such by the leading members of the Convention. The major alternatives were legislative election versus some form of popular election, either direct or indirect..." David K. Nichols, *The Myth of the Modern Presidency,* p. 40. http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA40

Nichols notes that "It is also commonly assumed that the use of electors was a product of the Framers' distrust of popular opinion. In support of this claim we are often treated to quotations from delegates to the convention such as George Mason who said 'It would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would be to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.' There is, however, a major problem with using such statements to show the antidemocratic character of the electoral college. The delegates who expressed the deepest distrust of popular votes were delegates who eventually opposed the Constitution, such as George Mason or Elbridge Gerry, or those who favored election by the legislature, such as Roger Sherman, Charles Pinkney, or George Mason...

""But what of Alexander Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist*? There Hamilton claimed that the electoral college would refine popular opinion, would prevent the worst aspects of popular opinion from operating in the election of the President. Some delegates probably supported the electoral college because they saw it as a check on popular opinion. But it is interesting to note that Hamilton's argument in the *Federalist* for the refining effect of the electoral college was not made at the Constitutional Convention. Instead, Gouverneur Morris argued that the extent of the nation would serve to refine popular choice. Morris contended that although persons of dubious character and ability might be elevated to office in a single district or state, they would be unlikely
to be elected by the nation as a whole. Only worthy candidates would have a chance of gaining election from so large a constituency. For Morris it was the size of the nation, and not the judgment of the electors, that would screen unworthy candidates. Hamilton borrows Morris's language for use in the *Federalist* but he substantially alters Morris's argument..." http://books.google.com/books?id=x6qPrM4B32IC&pg=PA43

Morris, as it turns out, was more perceptive than Hamilton (or than many small-state delegates who wishfully thought that presidential races would frequently be thrown into the House; Morris correctly predicted that this would not be the case, arguing that under the new constitution with its more powerful national government, men with national reputations would be likely to arise, and people would vote for them rather than waste their votes on local or regional favorites). The Electoral College never really "screened" public opinion; the party system did that. Even as early as 1796, the first "faithless elector" provoked howls of outrage ("What, do I choose Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas Jefferson shall be President? No! I choose him to act, not to think.") and even further back, in 1792, when the presidency was uncontested, the vice-presidency was basically determined on party lines, with electors voting for Adams or Clinton based on which party had the support of the voters or legislatures that chose the electors. In short, from a *very* early time, the Electoral College became an essentially popular election (admittedly in a modified form), and arguably was intended as such from the beginning.

In fact, even the Anti-Federalists conceded the popular nature of the Presidency. To some, that was part of the problem. Patrick Henry said, "To me it appears that there is no check in that Government. The President, Senators, and Representatives all immediately, or mediately, are the choice of the people." http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s13.html

(Yes, this post really belongs in the pre-1900 section, but on the whole, as has been pointed out, so does the entire thread...)
 
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1888 Pretty obvious fraud committed by the Republicans in New York, which was much remarked on at the time.

IMO Harrison carried New York fair and square in 1888. To quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***

There were accusations that Governor David Hill had "knifed" Cleveland, but
these seem to be rejected by most historians. (After all, if Hill wanted the
presidency in 1892, he should have wanted Cleveland re-elected in 1888, since
in that event the no-third-term tradition would eliminate Cleveland as a
candidate in 1892.) The real reason for the discrepancy between Cleveland's
vote and Hill's has to do with the liquor issue. Hill had vetoed the "high
license" bill (a bill to place a high fee on licenses that liquor merchants
acquired from the state of New York) and the Reublican candidate for
governor, Warner Miller, had criticized Hill for the veto.
http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=May&Date=19
The result is that Miller lost a substantial number of normally Republican
German voters. (Of course Miller had a dilemma: had he not criticized Hill
for the veto, Miller might have lost some votes to the Prohibition Party.)
Cleveland's biographer Robert McNutt McElroy quotes the anti-Hill editor of
the *Brooklyn Eagle,* St. Clair McElway as having acknowledged in 1907,
"Governor Hill was true to Mr. Cleveland in 1888. Mr. Cleveland lost this
state then because many German Republicans, who voted for General Harrison
also voted for Governor Hill...on account of the rigorous excise views which
Warner Miller had expressed. [This fact] made the vote for Hill larger than
for Cleveland, but Governor Hill, though he benefited by that fact, did not
promote it, and did all he could to get everybody who voted for him to vote
for Cleveland also."

All in all, I'd say that Cleveland's loss in New York in 1888 (narrowly, of
course; presidential elections in New York and indeed nationwide were almost
always close in the Gilded Age) was to be expected. After all, he had only
carried the state by 1,000 votes in 1884, and the Republicans had numerous
advantages in 1888 over 1884:

(1) A candidate (Harrison) who was less vulnerable to attacks on his personal
integrity than Blaine;

(2) The death of Roscoe Conkling, whose hatred of Blaine may have been as
responsible as anything for Cleveland's carrying New York in 1884 (Conkling's
stronghold, Oneida County, went for Cleveland by nineteen votes in 1884 after
having gone for Garfield by more than two thousand in 1880);

(3) No "rum, Romanism, and rebellion" embarrassment;

(4) Cleveland's stance in favor of lower tariffs, specifically his stance in
favor of placing wool on the free list. As James Ford Rhodes observed, "[H]is
recommendation of free wool made of every farmer who owned a sheep a
protectionist....it is not unlikely that the advocacy of free wool was the
predominant factor [in Cleveland's defeat]. New York farmers owned one and
a half million of sheep and produced annually six million seven hundred thousand
pounds of wool. Indiana had over a million sheep producing five million pounds.
The Oregon State election in June, an indication of November, gave a largely
increased Republican majority; and this was a clear protest against the
Democratic policy of free wool, the clip in that State being ten million pounds." http://books.google.com/books?id=51wAAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA502

***

BTW, I am not terribly disturbed by the discrepancy between the electoral and popular vote in 1888 or 1876 because in each case the Democratic edge in the popular vote was largely the product of the disfranchisement of southern African Americans.
 

jahenders

Banned
What is the alternative?

There was actually a different system before the 12th Amendment, though it still involved electoral votes. It would be somewhat interesting to discuss what would have happened if the original idea had been kept, or how it could be kept, but this almost ASB since it was really unworkable.

The obvious alternative of direct election by nationwide popular vote is actually also ASB. The framers were not (small d) democrats. The first time you might get this into the constitution is if they did a constitutional convention after the Civil War, instead of pretending that the original structure was still in place and addressing a few of the more obvious problems with amendments. You might get it as part of the progressive package of reforms in the early 20th century, and after that you need a reversal (popular vote and electoral vote going different ways) that instead of people just shrugging and accepting, leads to civil war or comes close to it.

If the POD is the original 1787 convention, the main alternative really is election of the President by the Congress, or some different version of the Electoral College. I could see just skipping the Electoral College and just going straight to what happens if the Electoral College is deadlocked (which the framers thought would be the normal situation), election of the President by the House of Representatives on the basis of state delegations, and election of the Vice President by the Senate.

So this really depends what is adopted as the alternative. Election by Congress, the likeliest alternative, creates tons of butterflies.

Focusing on the alternatives is key. If the change occurs before 1910 or so, then the main alternative would likely be to have the president elected by Congress or, perhaps, state delegations.

If the change occurs after 1960 or so, then direct, popular election is more likely. Between 1910 and 1960, it's uncertain how things would go.
 
Focusing on the alternatives is key. If the change occurs before 1910 or so, then the main alternative would likely be to have the president elected by Congress or, perhaps, state delegations.

Very unlikely. The States would never ratify an Amendment adopting election by Congress. And "State delegations" would differ little from the Electoral College - unless you mean "one state, one vote" which the larger states would certainly block.

One possibility. Had the HoR approved the proposed 13th Amendment, which came within six votes of passage in Jan 1820, then Presidential Electors would have been chosen by popular vote in congressional districts. In theory, the remaining "Senatorial" electors could have been chosen differently, but in most states these too would probably have been directly elected. And with this change made there might have been a further amendment later going over to a straight popular election - though it would have been difficult to sell this to the South. But once the "general ticket" system had become nearly universal, the bigger states would have been reluctant to disturb the status quo.
 

jahenders

Banned
Very unlikely. The States would never ratify an Amendment adopting election by Congress. And "State delegations" would differ little from the Electoral College - unless you mean "one state, one vote" which the larger states would certainly block.

One possibility. Had the HoR approved the proposed 13th Amendment, which came within six votes of passage in Jan 1820, then Presidential Electors would have been chosen by popular vote in congressional districts. In theory, the remaining "Senatorial" electors could have been chosen differently, but in most states these too would probably have been directly elected. And with this change made there might have been a further amendment later going over to a straight popular election - though it would have been difficult to sell this to the South. But once the "general ticket" system had become nearly universal, the bigger states would have been reluctant to disturb the status quo.

It sounds like that 13th amendment would be very similar to the Electoral College with proportional allocations (vice Winner-Take-All)
 
It sounds like that 13th amendment would be very similar to the Electoral College with proportional allocations (vice Winner-Take-All)

In general it would be closer to that than OTL, but there would e exceptions, esp where a candidate's support was concentrated in one region. Thus in 1860 Breckinridge would still be in second place, whereas on a strictly proportional system that would have been Douglas. Lincoln, for his part, would still be at or near 50% of the electors, despite getting only 39% of the popular vote. OTOH 1916, a straight two party race, would still be too close to call, as it was OTL.

The intriguing question is what happens in years when, OTL, the Presidential result has gone one way and the Congressional result another. Thus in 1968 and 1972, Nixon was elected with a Democratic HoR. Does this mean he does less well with a district system - or do the Republicans fare better in the House - or neither - does ticket splitting mean things still turn out much the same?
 
If it's replaced by a French-style runoff system after 1824, it will cause massive butterflies during the 1850s and may affect when the Civil War starts.
 
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