The Unsettled Presidency of 1876

Yesterday’s returns from the presidential election have left the result in a state of uncertainty. More than once, the defects of the machinery for determining which of two or more candidates has been elected to the Presidency have been strikingly shown. It has been fortunate that no case which has ever arisen has been affected by the vote of a state whose returns were disputed, but it is now possible that such a contingency may arise. Article II of the Constitution provides that each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled. No Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. The twelfth amendment provides that Electors meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President. The lists are signed, certified, and transmitted to the President of the Senate, who opens them in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the votes are then 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. Neither the Constitution nor the laws of the United States expressly provide the means of determining controversies that may arise in regard to the counting of the electoral vote, yet that power has been exercised by the concurrent action of the two Houses of Congress.