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Qualifications for Electors
by Kat Howarth (KatHowarth)
Cite as: Kat Howarth, ‘Qualifications for Electors’ in N. P. Cole, Grace Mallon and Kat Howarth, The Creation of the Electoral College, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 79.
The Creation of the Electoral College
(To read a specific commentary item, please click on its link.)
- The choice of the president in the national legislature
- Election by the people and the merits of election by Congress
- The 'chimerical' nature of election by the people
- The first idea of an electoral college
- A role for state legislatures
- Independence via ineligibility
- An accountable executive
- Concerns of the Committee of the Whole
- An equal voice for all states?
- A democratic magistrate
- The merits of popular election debated
- The problem of forbidding re-election
- A President for life?
- A summary of the difficulties presented by the creation of the executive
- The electoral college proposed for a second time
- The electoral college agreed to
- Election by National Legislature reinstated
- An element of chance
- Alternative modes of election
- The President to be chosen by the State Governors
- Madison's comment on various modes of election
- Committee of detail report
- The idea of an electoral college reintroduced
- The electoral college as a tool for the Separation of Powers
- Limitations of the Electoral College
- Ineligibility and the Electoral College
- Qualifications for Electors
- A role for the House of Representatives instead
- The final iteration of the electoral college
Commentary
Having emphasised the Separation of Powers in the decision of the Committee on Postponed Questions to bring back the electoral college idea, King and Gerry here successfully persuaded the delegates that members of the Legislature should not be able to become Electors, thereby severing another possible tie between the Legislature and the election of the Executive. This serves as an extra reinforcement of the importance of the Separation of Powers and the independence of the Executive to the delegates.
Approved for publication
None