[Sidenote:  Original purpose of the electoral college not fulfilled.] To return to the electoral college:  it was devised as a safeguard against popular excitement.  It was supposed that the electors in their December meeting would calmly discuss the merits of the ablest men in the country and make an intelligent selection for the presidency.  The electors were to use their own judgment, and it was not necessary that all the electors chosen in one state should vote for the same candidate.  The people on election day were not supposed to be voting for a president but for presidential electors.  This theory was never realized.  The two elections of Washington, in 1788 and 1792, were unanimous.  In the second contested election, that of 1800, the electors simply registered the result of the popular vote, and it has been so ever since.  Immediately after the popular election, a whole month before the meeting of the electoral college, we know who is to be the next president.  There is no law to prevent an elector from voting for a different pair of candidates from those at the head of the party ticket, but the custom has become as binding as a statute.  The elector is chosen to vote for specified candidates, and he must do so.

[Sidenote:  Electors formerly chosen in many states by districts; now usually on a general ticket.] On the other hand, it was not until long after 1800 that all the electoral votes of the same state were necessarily given to the same pair of candidates.  It was customary in many states to choose the electors by districts.  A state entitled to ten electors would choose eight of them in its eight congressional districts, and there were various ways of choosing the other two.  In some of the districts one party would have a majority, in others the other, and so the electoral vote of the state would be divided between two pairs of candidates.  After 1830 it became customary to choose the electors upon a general ticket, and thus the electoral vote became solid in each state.[13]

[Footnote 13:  In 1860 the vote of New Jersey was divided between Lincoln and Douglas, but that was because the names of three of the seven Douglas electors were upon two different tickets, and thus got a majority of votes while the other four fell short.  In 1892 the state of Michigan chose its electors by districts.]

[Sidenote:  Minority presidents.] [Sidenote:  Advantages of the electoral system.] This system, of course, increases the chances of electing presidents who have received a minority of the popular vote.  A candidate may carry one state by an immense majority and thus gain 6 or 8 electoral votes; he may come within a few hundred of carrying another state and thus lose 36 electoral votes.  Or a small third party may divert some thousands of votes from the principal candidate without affecting the electoral vote of the state.  Since Washington’s second term we have had twenty-three contested elections,[14] and in nine of these the elected president has failed