When this country first began, the winner of the election became president and the runner-up became the vice president. This practice was changed very early on (after like 3 elections or something). I can't remember what it was that was the major flaw in the practice. Does anybody know?

Hmmm... I don't know. But I want to take a guess before any one who knows answers.
I think it's just that the president and vice president could just turn out to be such strong opponents that they can't work together.

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That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

Here's the gig:

Under the Constitution (before it changed) the members of the U.S. Electoral College voted only for the President. The person receiving the greatest number of votes was President, while the individual who was in second place became Vice President.

What changed? Political Parties! In the election of 1796 Federalist John Adams came in first, and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. You see the issue here. After all the crap that went down with John Tyler (the first person to assume the Presidency following the death of the President), the 12th Amendment was passed in 1804. It directed the electors to use separate ballots to vote for the President and Vice President.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

Thank you for the information, stekim. I wasn't aware of that.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

is sounds pretty clear to me....if,for example,Al gore would be Bush's vice president,it could divert the two leading people in the o(*)(*)(*)(*)ry,making the state's leaders not united because of their diffrent opinions...beside,if you choose democrat,it's not because you want a republican as one of the leading people in the goverment you chose.

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To be free people,in our own land,the land of Zion and Jeruaslem

Thats what I was thinking but I wasn't sure. I guess that it seemed like a good practice, since the founders were initially opposed to political parties.

Now, I actually know who Tyler was, because he was known as a punk for being against partisan politics - but he was much later than 1804...just curious how he fits into all of this. My second curiosity regards any specific events that may have taken place to prompt the amendment. If the amendment occured in 1804, that would have been during Jefferson's presidency - and Jefferson was known to have not gotten along with Burr at all, so I might take a guess that this is what prompted it. Know of any specific instances that would have made it clear that the change needed to be made? I'd be interested to know.

It was Aaron Burr I was talking about! Brain fart. Tyler came way later. Not sure how that passed through. Sorry.

Anyway, I have your answer in brief. In 1800 Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for President. It was intended that Jefferson be the Presidential contender and Burr be the Vice Presidential one, but under the rules of the time the electors did not and could not differentiate between the two. That resulted in 35 unsuccessful votes in the U.S. House of Representatives before Jefferson finally won. After that, as mentioned above using the wrong name, they went to a two ballot system to make it clear.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

No biggie

Thats amazing...with the amount of time that must have wasted, I can imagine they were pretty eager to make the change.

Thanks for the info - I'm going to have to read into it some time.

One little tidbit from our early history to illustrate the point. In 1796, John Adams won the presidency and his arch-rival, Thomas Jefferson, the vice-presidency.

In 1798, the Administration pushed for, and got, passage of the Sedition Act. This was a horrible act, but that's not the point.

The law specifically protected the President and Congress against charges of Sedition -- but not the vice president.

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Man up.