U.S. presidential election, 1796

The U.S. presidential election of 1796 was the first contested American presidential election and the first to expose potential flaws in the original Electoral College system.

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Incumbent Vice President John Adams was a candidate for the presidency on the Federalist Party ticket with Thomas Pinckney as his running mate. His opponent was Thomas Jefferson, who was joined by Aaron Burr on the Republican ticket.

Related Topics:
Vice President - John Adams - Presidency - Federalist Party - Thomas Pinckney - Thomas Jefferson - Aaron Burr - Republican

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Under the system then in place, Electors had two votes, but both were for President; the runner-up in the presidential race was elected Vice President. Each party intended to get around this by having some of their Electors cast one vote for the intended presidential candidate and one vote for somebody besides the intended vice presidential candidate, leaving their vice presidential candidate a few votes shy of their presidential candidate. Unfortunately, these schemes were complicated by several factors:

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• All electoral votes were cast on the same day, and communications between states were extremely slow at that time, making it very difficult to coordinate which Electors were to tank their Vice Presidential votes.
• There were rumors that southern Electors pledged to Jefferson were coerced to give their second vote to Pinckney in hope of electing him President instead of Adams. Indeed, as it turned out, all eight South Carolina Electors as well as at least one Pennsylvania Elector cast ballots for both Jefferson and Pinckney.

The result was that too many Adams electors failed to cast their second vote for Pinckney, and so Adams was elected President while his opponent, Jefferson, was elected Vice President. Jefferson would leverage his position as Vice President to attack President Adams' policies, which would help him reach the White House in the following election.

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The problems arising from this election and the election of 1800 were the impetus for the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Related Topics:
Election of 1800 - Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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U.S. presidential election, 1796: General election ►