The Jeffersonian Electoral College in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

For most of the twentieth century, including the 80-year period between 1912 and 1992, the existence of third-party or independent candidates did not prevent the Electoral College from producing majoritarian results consistent with the expectations of its Jeffersonian architects for how two-party competition was supposed to work. 1912 was anomalous for its three-way split among two Republican presidents, one incumbent and one former, running against the Democratic nominee; but its outcome was not clearly different from what the Jeffersonian system, operating properly, would have produced. 1992 involved another three-way split—among Bush, Clinton, and Perot—with a result that is uncertain from a Jeffersonian perspective, since it is debatable what the outcome would have been if there had been runoffs in the states to see which candidate was preferred by a majority. The century ended with an election, 2000, in which the system clearly malfunctioned; Nader’s presence masked Gore’s majority.