20 States which supported him (most notably in Clevelands home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 castless than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been foughtand wonmore on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day. These, then, are the major historical curiosities of the Electoral College system. And because they are so frequently cited as flaws in the system, a few observations on them seem in order. First, all of these events occurred over a century ago. For the past hundred years, the Electoral College has functioned without incident in every presidential election through two world wars, a major economic depression, and several periods of acute civil unrest. Only twice in this century (the States Rights Democrats in 1948 and George Wallaces American Independents in 1968) have there been attempts to block an Electoral College victory and thus either force a negotiation for the presidency or else force the decision into the Congress. Neither attempt came close to succeeding. Such stability, rare in human history, should not be lightly dismissed. Second, each of these events (except 1888) resulted either from political inexperience (as in 1800, 1836, and 1872) or from profound political divisions within the country (as in 1824, 1876, and even 1948 and 1968) which required some sort of higher order political resolution. And all of them were resolved in a peaceable and orderly fashion without any public uprising and without endangering the legitimacy of the sitting president. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a direct election of the president could have resolved events as agreeably. Finally, as the election of 1888 demonstrates, the Electoral College system imposes two requirements on candidates for ...
