Amendment XII

Amendment XII
“The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. --The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

The Twelfth Amendment states that the Electors have to cast their vote for President and Vice-President separately, and that the candidate with the most electoral votes is President…if there is a tie, then the House of Reps must vote by ballot immediately and if they fail to choose by March, then whoever has been voted as Vice-President shall act as President. Now if there is a tie for Vice-Presidency then the Senate is to choose from the two highest numbers on the list, which must consist of 2/3 votes of the Senate. The amendment also establishes that no person ineligible to hold the office of President may hold the office of Vice-President.

This amendment prevents a scenario from happening in which there is a tie for presidency and nobody knows what to do and is unable to reach a clear consensus. It basically describes how the Presidency and Vice-Presidency should be chosen in case there were to be a tie for the two positions. Fortunately, a tie hasn’t happened since the 1800’s…the Electoral system has seemed to work just fine with the exception of the 2000 election. I believe this is one of those less-relevant amendments…



I choose this video from School House Rock because it gave an accurate and entertaining explanation of how the Electoral College works.



I choose yet another Law Web TV video because there wasn’t much on the electoral college or on the 12th amendment in general and this series always give understandable definitions of the amendments.