12th Amendment

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

This amendment to me seems also to be quite important as the president and vice president have to be voted on seperately. It might be hard to be a vice president if the president is of a different political party. In addition, it seems important to me that the vice president has to have the same qualifications as the president. In the case of his/her death, the VP has to take over and therefore has to have the qualification and ability to govern this country.

"CBS 2 School: Dancing With The 12th Amendment

November 22, 2010 8:30 AM

From Adam Harrington

Bristol Palin, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr might share something in common after this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.”
While her dancing skills have improved during the course of the show, Palin has never been considered a top celebrity dancer at any point during this DWTS season. But the show’s online voting system has helped Palin land in the final round despite consistently poor scores from the judges.
According to Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker, Dancing with the Stars sources have been stunned by the degree of public support for Palin. Some online speculators even indicate that this season’s results have made ABC consider significant changes to its DWTS voting system.
The fate of DWTS contestants is based on a merger of scores from the judges plus votes from the public. If ABC overhauls this selection method, it could be the biggest electoral system overhaul since the 12th amendment in 1804.
The Constitution was written in 1787, well before the invention of reality TV. But when determining how the President of our new republic would be selected, the Framers preferred the Survivor method over the American Idol method.
Many of the Framers did not trust the masses and feared that the direct popular vote would lead to uneducated choices by uneducated citizens. American Idol has employed this direct voting method from the beginning, but its system of winnowing down candidates each week guarantees the winner can secure a majority of support when it comes down to the final two contestants.
Originally, our Electoral College was supposed to resemble Survivor’s tribal council. In Survivor, the final 10 contestants get to determine the winner of the $1 million prize. This tribal council constitutes a panel of experts who have spent the most time with the final two contestants and can theoretically make the most educated vote for the most deserving candidate.
This is how the Electoral College worked the first two times it selected George Washington unanimously. But in our third and fourth presidential elections, Electors started voting based on partisan backing rather than selecting the most qualified candidate. In 1796, this system created chaos with the election of President John Adams with his archrival, Thomas Jefferson, as vice president. Then in 1800, Aaron Burr nearly stole the presidential election when the House of Representatives had to select the winner between him and Thomas Jefferson.
By 1804, the Constitution was changed to address this partisan nature of Electoral voting. The 12th Amendment created the Electoral College system that we use today allowing for electoral votes to be cast for a slate of Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. The 12th Amendment still stands as the only change that has had to be made to the Constitution due to the development of political parties.
If Bristol Palin’s success brings changes to Dancing with the Stars, we can place her name along with Jefferson and Burr as Americans who caused some of this country’s most significant changes to its electoral systems."

Source: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/11/22/cbs-2-school-dancing-with-the-12th-amendment/

This article, even if it exagerates a little bit the importance of the show "Dancing with the stars" shows how alive the Constitution is till today. With finding these parallels between Jefferson, Burr and Palin the author shows the importance of changes in voting systems if something goes wrong.

In my opinion, this video shoes how one can manipulate people very easily. It is like cheating if Dick Cheyney moved into a different state just three days before proclaiming to become the Vice President. It is true that the 12th amendment states that the President and VP should not be citizens of the same state. Nevertheless there has not been a big turmoil about this. To me this seems kind of hypocritical. People like to point out the importance of some Amendments like the 1st, 5th or even the 2nd to some. No offense, they are important. Nevertheless, one should do something 100% or one should leave it.
And by the way: if the VP is not part of the executive, what is he then?