Editing Vice President of the United States (section)

===Constitutional Convention===

No mention of an office of vice president was made at the 1787 [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]] until near the end, when an eleven-member committee on "Leftover Business" proposed a method of electing the chief executive (president).<ref>{{cite web|title=Major Themes at the Constitutional Convention: 8. Establishing the Electoral College and the Presidency|url=http://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/convention/themes/8.html|website=TeachingAmericanHistory.org|publisher=Ashbrook Center at Ashland University|location=Ashland, Ohio|access-date=February 21, 2018|archive-date=February 10, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210174819/http://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/convention/themes/8.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Delegates had previously considered the selection of the Senate's presiding officer, deciding that "the Senate shall choose its own President", and had agreed that this official would be designated the executive's immediate successor. They had also considered the mode of election of the executive but had not reached consensus. This all changed on September 4, when the committee recommended that the nation's chief executive be elected by an [[Electoral College (United States)|Electoral College]], with each [[U.S. state|state]] having a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that state's allocation of [[United States House of Representatives|representatives]] and [[United States Senate|senators]].<ref name=Garvey/><ref name=RA2005TLR>{{cite journal|last=Albert|first=Richard|title=The Evolving Vice Presidency|journal=Temple Law Review|date=Winter 2005|volume=78|issue=4|url=https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1624&context=lsfp|pages=811–896|publisher=Temple University of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education|location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|access-date=July 29, 2018|via=Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School|archive-date=April 1, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401064932/https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&httpsredir=1&article=1624&context=lsfp|url-status=live}}</ref>

Recognizing that loyalty to one's individual state outweighed loyalty to the new federation, the Constitution's framers assumed individual electors would be inclined to choose a candidate from their own state (a so-called "[[favorite son]]" candidate) over one from another state. So they created the office of vice president and required the electors to vote for two candidates, at least one of whom must be from outside the elector's state, believing that the second vote would be cast for a candidate of national character.<ref name=RA2005TLR/><ref>{{cite magazine|title=US Vice Presidents|url=http://www.historytoday.com/mark-rathbone/us-vice-presidents|last=Rathbone|first=Mark|magazine=History Review|issue=71|date=December 2011|publisher=History Today|location=London|access-date=February 21, 2018|archive-date=February 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219050924/http://www.historytoday.com/mark-rathbone/us-vice-presidents|url-status=live}}</ref> Additionally, to guard against the possibility that electors might [[Gamesmanship#Usage outside of games|strategically]] waste their second votes, it was specified that the first runner-up would become vice president.<ref name=RA2005TLR/>

The resultant method of electing the president and vice president, spelled out in [[Article Two of the United States Constitution#Clause 3: Electoral College|Article{{spaces}}II, Section{{spaces}}1, Clause{{spaces}}3]], allocated to each [[U.S. state|state]] a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives membership. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for president (rather than for both president and vice president), but could not [[Ranked voting|differentiate]] between their first and second choice for the presidency. The person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided it was an [[absolute majority]] of the whole number of electors) would be president, while the individual who received the next largest number of votes became vice president. If there were a tie for first or for second place, or if no one won a majority of votes, the president and vice president would be selected by means of [[contingent election]]s protocols stated in the clause.<ref name=A2TKec>{{cite web|last=Kuroda|first=Tadahisa|title=Essays on Article II: Electoral College|work=The Heritage Guide to The Constitution|url=https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/80/electoral-college|publisher=The Heritage Foundation|access-date=July 27, 2018|archive-date=August 22, 2020|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200822232208/https://www.heritage.org/constitution/%23!/amendments/8/essays/161/cruel-and-unusual-punishment#!/articles/2/essays/80/electoral-college|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=CRS2017THN>{{cite web|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|title=The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections|date=May 15, 2017|url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32611.pdf|work=CRS Report for Congress|publisher=Congressional Research Service|location=Washington, D.C.|page=13|access-date=July 29, 2018|archive-date=December 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201206064910/https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32611.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>