Replies

Yes, it is. Ratified in 1803, the 12th amendment is a hold-over from the era before party bloc politics dominated the way the Electoral College voted. The Electoral College is a brilliant system to give each state a say in the choice of the executive of the federal system, but the mechanics of it has become warped over time.

I believe that in the early days, the Electoral College was made up of city and town leaders from each state, and they voted as individuals for whom they thought were the best people for President and Vice President, subject to the restriction that they could only vote for one person from the same state as themselves. This was also from the period when three, four, five or more people ran for president (nobody ran for Vice President) and the #2 vote-getter became Vice President.

Today, the party candidates are treated is an indivisible pair (though technically they are not), and the Electoral College is a slate of pre-vetted members of the state party delegation who rubber-stamp the ticket. Voters in each state are voting for the slate of Electors, who then rubber-stamp the their party's pair of candidates.

It would be wild if we had some kind of reform that did away with voting for a Vice President, and made everybody run only for President, letting the Electoral College assemble the final offices like in the old way.

-PJ