The Electoral Mechanics

BY the terms of the now antiquated Twelfth Amendment (passed in 1804), the slates of electors chosen in this week's national voting will meet in their various state capitals on Dec. 16 to cast ballots for President and Vice President of the U.S. Each state has a number of electoral votes equal to its total number of Senators and Representatives in Congress. Thus New York, for example, with 41 Representatives and two Senators, has 43 electoral votes. The District of Columbia lacks congressional representation but has three electoral votes by virtue of the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961.

The electors, usually party regulars selected in state conventions well before the November election, are committed by tradition in most states to vote for their party's candidate. However, the electors are generally free to vote for anyone who meets the constitutional requirements of age, residence and citizenship. In 1960, for example, one Republican elector from Oklahoma voted for Virginia's Senator Harry F. Byrd.

Having cast ballots for President and Vice President, the state's electors sign and certify their tally and send it, sealed, to the President of the U.S. Senate. There, on Jan. 6, in the presence of both the House and the Senate, the nation's electoral vote is ritualistically counted in what must rank as the greatest anticlimax in American politics.

If none of the candidates receives a majority of the electoral votes, the House, with each state's delegation allotted one vote, immediately begins balloting to choose a President from among the three who scored highest in the electoral count. The Senate, meantime, withdraws to select a Vice President from between the two who scored highest for that post in the electoral vote.

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