In the election of 1800, why did Burr end up with as many electoral votes as Jefferson, rather than one fewer?

Just Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale

You may or may not be old enough to remember the animated Saturday Morning reboot of Gilligan's Island. One episode of the show had the 7 castaways holding an election for "President" of the island. Each castaway thought they should be the one to run things, and voted for himself or herself. Everyone (but Gilligan) voted for Gilligan for Vice-President because they wanted somebody they could control. So, with no majority for President, Vice-President Gilligan was left in charge. The 1800 US Presidential Election was kind of like that.

But Seriously, Folks...

The bizarre outcome of the 1800 Presidential election was a combination of the poorly thought out electoral process described in the Constitution and extreme partisanship between the Federalists, led by President Adams, and the "Democratic-Republicans" as led by Jefferson.

Article II, Section I of the Constitution describes the process of the Electoral College choosing the President:

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves...The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one of them for Presidentand if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner choose the President...In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice-President.

In other words, all of the candidates are in one pool for President and Vice-President. The candidate with the most electoral votes would become President and the one with the second most votes would become Vice-President. If the situation was any more complicated, the House had to decide who won.

But the hyper-partisan rancor in 1800 meant that no Federalist would vote for a Democratic-Republican and vice versa.Between 1796 and 1800, Adams's Vice-President was his bitter political rival Jefferson, and no-one wanted a repeat.

On top of all that, there were no nominating conventions in 1800. All the electoral votes were determined in state capitals, which were days or even weeks of travel away from each other, and then taken to Washington and tallied up.

Pinckney drops the ball?

In order to avoid a tie, South Carolina was supposed to cast one less vote for Burr than Jefferson. In A December 2 letter, publisher Peter Freneau tells Jefferson about the fact that all of the state's electors were Democratic-Repulicans:

The Vote tomorrow I understand will be Thomas Jefferson 8. Aaron Burr 7. Geo Clinton 1. you will easily discover why the one Vote is varied.—I take the liberty of giving you this information because Mr C. Pinckney is not on the spot, he is at his plantation about five miles distant and will not be in time for the Post of this day. I know that it is his most earnest wish to give you the earliest information of the result of all our labors.

Freneau appears to be writing on behalf of Senator Charles Pinckney, cousin of the Federalist candidate. Pinckney had switched sides in 1796 and was leading the Democratic-Republican effort to get Jefferson elected.

But Freneau spoke too soon -- this did not happen! When the actual vote occurred on December 3, there were 8 votes each for Burr and Jefferson. It's possible that in Pinckney's absence, no-one told the electors the plan. Pinckney's December 2 postscript to an earlier letter to Jefferson makes no mention of these machinations, and his December 3 letter goes on as if unanimity for Burr was the plan all along:

This will be delivered to You by a Very confidential young man Who carries our eight Votes for Yourself & Mr. Burr & We have been at some pains to get so confidential a [Man] to carry them

I hate when that happens

So at the end, all of the Democratic-Republican electors voted for Jefferson and Burr, and the two were tied in the Electoral College.

The resulting mess in the House of Representatives (Federalists kept voting for Burr to keep him tied with Jefferson) caused Congress to pass the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which made it clear that this wasn't to happen again:

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...