Ugh!! That would be a total nightmare! LOL!
Can you imagine if the general election were held staggered like this in different states over 4 months time?
Given the Constitutional mandate that the Electors always had to VOTE for President/Vice-President on the same day, it seems strange to us now that from 1792 to 1844 the date of the APPOINTMENT of the Electors for President and Vice-President by the States of the Union were staggered over a 34 day period. While not four months, this 34 day selection/election period for Electors for the first fifteen Presidential elections was finally ended and replaced with a single date for said appointment/election of Electors by the several States by the Congress.
The reason for the change was that the Congress could no longer avoid the fact that members of a certain political Party (which shall go nameless) would vote for electors in their home State and then 'move' to a bordering State which had a later election date and then vote for electors in their 'new' home State, and then repeat to yet another bordering State which had their elections even later in that 34 day period. After this great electoral tour was complete, they would return to their original 'home' State content with the knowledge that they had done more than their fair share in upholding the tradition of voting early and often... After the 1844 elections the Congress changed the Law in 1845 those voting shenanigans could no longer take place.
1792 through 1844:...[E]lectors shall be appointed in each State for the election of a President and Vice-President of the United States, within thirty-four days preceding the first Wednesday in December, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, and within thirty-four days preceding the first Wednesday in December in every fourth year succeeding the last election, which Electors shall be equal to the number of Senators and Representatives, to which the several States may by Law be entitled at the time...
from 1 Stat. 239, Section 1
Source: TheGreenPapers.com : DATES OF U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION "EVENTS" (about mid-page)
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