In the United States, a contingent election is used to elect the president or vice president if no candidate receives a majority of the whole number of electors appointed. A presidential contingent election is decided by a special vote of the United States House of Representatives, while a vice-presidential contingent election is decided by a vote of the United States Senate. During a contingent election in the House, each state delegation votes en bloc to choose the president instead of representatives voting individually. Senators, by contrast, cast votes individually for vice president.
The contingent election process is specified in Article Two, Section 1, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. The procedure was modified by the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, under which the House chooses one of the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, while the Senate chooses one of the two candidates who received the most electoral votes. The phrase "contingent election" is not in the text of the Constitution but has been used to describe this procedure since at least 1823.[1]
Contingent elections have occurred three times in American history: in 1801, 1825, and 1837. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the presidential and vice-presidential nominees on the ticket of the Democratic-Republican Party, received the same number of electoral votes. Under the pre-Twelfth Amendment Constitution, a contingent election was held the following year to decide which one would be president and which vice president. In 1824, the Electoral College was split between four presidential candidates, with Andrew Jackson losing the subsequent contingent election in the House to John Quincy Adams even though he won a plurality of both the popular and electoral vote. In 1836, faithless electors in Virginia refused to vote for Martin Van Buren's vice presidential nominee, Richard Mentor Johnson, denying him a majority of the electoral vote and thus forcing a contingent election in the Senate for vice president; Johnson won the election handily.
The past three contingent elections were conducted by the outgoing Congress because congressional terms then ended / began on March 4, the same day as presidential terms. In 1933, the Twentieth Amendment set the new congressional term to start on January 3 and the new presidential term on January 20. The amendment shortened the length of lame-duck sessions of Congress by two months, and any future contingent elections would be conducted by the incoming Congress.[2]
The equality of suffrage for the States, in the first branch, in the contingent election of President, was a part of that compromise, as well the slave representation allowed to the slave holding States, and the equality of representation in the Senate, or second branch.