Congress met in joint session on 2/11/1801 to count the certificates of vote from the 16 states. VP Thomas Jefferson presided. When all states had been counted, the result was a tie for first place (73 votes each) between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, his running mate on the Democratic Republican ticket. President John Adams placed third with 65 votes, and his running mate Charles C. Pinckney received 64 votes.

Note: The certificate of vote from Georgia was slightly deficient, but it was not challenged.

The Contingent Election

Once VP Jefferson stated that the Presidential Electors had not made a choice, the members of the U.S. House began to ballot. Using the rules in the Constitution, each state received one vote and could vote for Jefferson or Burr. To win, a candidate needed nine of the sixteen votes. Speaker Theodore Sedgwick presided. Individual names of Representatives from each state were called to determine who won the vote of each state; no tellers were appointed.

On the first ballot, Jefferson won eight states: GA, KY, NJ, NY, NC, PA, TN, and VA. He was one vote shy of a majority. Burr won six votes: CT, DE, MA, NH, RI, and SC. Two states were tied and thus were not able to cast a vote: MD and VT. All together, 55 Representatives voted for Jefferson and 48 for Burr. Although most of the Federalists in the House voted for Burr, many of them supported Jefferson. At the time, this lame duck session of the Sixth Congress was firmly in the control of the Federalists.

Over the course of the next six days, the House took another 34 ballots. Jefferson’s early lead among the body as a whole fell to an equilibrium with Burr at 51 each, with no change in the votes of any state. Political leaders urged both Jefferson and Burr to make some arrangement with Federalist leaders to break the deadlock. Some Federalist leaders hoped that if no choice were made by the date of inauguration, the President pro tempore of the Senate would become the President. Burr believed that he did not need to make any deals because Jefferson’s support was slowly falling. After the 35th ballot, with the same 8-6-2 result, Jefferson agreed to some moderate demands of Delaware’s single Federalist Representative. At the meeting of the Federalist caucus on the morning of 2/17/1801, it became clear that the Federalists wanted to bring an end to the deadlock. Nine Federalists abstained from the voting, which resulted in a Jefferson victory. He carried 10 states to 4 for Burr and two not voting.

The deadlock in the House proved fatal to the Federalists. In the states voting in late 1800, the Federalists lost a few key races. In the races decided after the deadlock began, however, the Federalists lost 10 of their 16 seats. The result was that the Democratic Republican Party assumed control of the U.S. House.

Federalist Caucus of 1800

Democratic Republican Caucus of 1800

Popular vote of 1800

Electoral Vote of 1800

Key sources

The Glorious Burden, pp. 57-60.

The Presidential Game, pp. 69-72.