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MarmeeMarch In 1800, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, as President of the Senate, counted the Electoral Votes.
He didn't throw out votes, but he COUNTED the technically flawed Electoral Votes from the State of Georgia in his favor. In otherwords, he decided to count Electoral Votes in his favor that technically he should NOT have.
If Georgia's EVs were note counted, Jefferson and Aaron Burr would have each received 69 Electoral Votes, as well as President Adams. All would have been short of the 70 Electoral Votes needed for a two-man run-off in the House.
In reality, Jefferson and Burr each received 73 and the election was thrown to the House. Jefferson was elected President on the 36th ballot. Burr became Vice President.
But under the rules at the time, had Jefferson NOT awarded himself (and Burr), Georgia's 4 EVs, then there would have been a
five-man runoff in the House:
Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) 69
Burr (Democratic-Republican) 69
John Adams (Federalist) 65
Charles Pinckney (Federalist) 64
John Jay (Federalist) 1
(One Federalist elector voted for John Jay so as to allow John Adams a presidential victory over Pinckney had they each received more than 69 EVs).
In a five-man runoff, it is likely that Revoluntionary War hero and South Carolinian Charles Pinckney would have emerged as the compromise candidate acceptable to the Democratic-Republican in order to stop the re-election of John Adams.
Thus if Jefferson did in fact ignore irregularities that should have invalidated the Georgia ballot, the historical consequences are profound. Had that ballot been tossed out, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, not Thomas Jefferson, might well have become the third President of the United States.
