- The House met in closed session, with only stenographers, House officers, Representatives, and Senators allowed to be present.
- Motions to adjourn were not entertained unless offered and seconded by state delegations, not individual Members.
- State delegations were arranged in the House chamber from left to right in the order in which the roll was called. At the time, the roll began with Maine, proceeded north to south through the original states, and concluded with subsequently admitted states, in order of their entry into the Union.
- The election consisted of a two-round process: Members of the state delegations voted internally in the first round and the results of the state votes themselves were cast in the second round.
- Each state delegation received a ballot box for first round voting and two additional general ballot boxes were provided for the second round.
- All votes were cast anonymously, on paper ballots, in both rounds.
- If one candidate received a majority of votes cast in the state delegation[1] in the first round, the state vote was cast for that candidate in the second round. The state delegations prepared two ballots for the second round, each inscribed with the name of the winning candidate, if any. If there was no majority, the ballot was inscribed “divided.”
- The duplicate second round results were collected by tellers and deposited in duplicate ballot boxes in the House chamber. The contents were counted by tellers, compared, and reported to the House.[2]
It should be noted again that these decisions applied only to the rules under which the House of Representatives conducted contingent election of the President in 1825; although they would provide a reference for the House in any future application of the contingent election process, they would not be prescriptive, and could be subject to different interpretations. For instance, in the modern context, there would almost certainly be strong pressure for contingent election sessions in both chambers to be not only open to the public and reporters, but covered by radio and television as well. Similarly, there might be strong support for individual Members’ votes to be made public in the House of Representatives, given the fact that the constitutional injunction that voting be “by ballot,” and therefore secret, arguably applies only to the votes of the states in the second round.
Contingent Election in 1825: Representatives Debate Their Options
Spirited debate as to the nature and requirements of contingent election preceded the actual vote in 1825. One question concerned the role of individual Representatives. Some asserted that it was the duty of the House to choose Jackson, the candidate who had won a national plurality of the popular and electoral vote. Others believed they should vote for the popular vote winner in their state or district. Another school of opinion suggested that House Members should give prominence to the popular results, but also consider themselves at liberty to weigh the comparative merits of the three candidates. Still others asserted that contingent election was a constitutionally distinct process, triggered by the failure of the people (and the electors) to arrive
