On June 29, 1892, the Prohibition Party held its national convention in Cincinnati. It nominated John Bidwell for President, and James B. Cranfill for Vice-President. Cranfill was age 33 at the time. He had been born September 12, 1858. He was a Texas physician, teacher, and editor of The Baptist Standard. The party made no secret of his age. Cranfill was praised for having accomplished a great deal despite his relative youth.
Despite the fact that Cranfill didn’t meet the Constitutional age requirement, and that this was well known, no state refused to print his name on the ballot because of his age. The ticket appeared on every ballot except South Dakota’s (where the party missed the filing deadline). In 1892, there were 44 states, and all but eight states used government-printed ballots. The eight states that didn’t have government-printed ballots, and where voters or parties prepared their own ballots, were Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
No state barred Cranfill from its ballot. Back then, people had a clearer understanding that the true candidates in November are the candidates for presidential elector. The presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ names generally appeared on the ballots as well, but as markers, so the voters would know the intentions of the presidential elector candidates. Also, back then, in every state, voters voted for individual candidates for electors, and weren’t confined to voting for all the members of a slate.
The U.S. Constitution’s provisions concerning the Electoral College have not changed since 1892, but nowadays the public, and even election administrators, don’t understand it as well as they did back then. If people did understand the Electoral College, there would be no instances in which election administrators kept people under the age of 35 years off the ballot, nor would there be any need for lawsuits over whether a particular presidential or vice-presidential candidate is a “natural-born citizen.” The presidential elector candidates would tell the world their intentions. The voters would choose presidential electors. If any presidential elector candidate was elected in November, and in December voted for someone for president who doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications, it would be up to Congress in January to refuse to count that electoral vote. Congress is free to refuse to count electoral votes. The precedent was set in 1872, when Congress refused to count the three electoral votes that had been cast for Horace Greeley. Congress ruled this way because Greeley had died after the November election but before the December meeting of the Electoral College.
