Preside over the Senate and cast tie breaker votes. of the executive branch - the Executive Office of the President, the Cabinet, and the independent agencies.Under the original rules of the Constitution, each member of the Electoral College cast two electoral votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. The presidential candidate receiving the greatest number of votes provided that number equaled a majority of the electors, was elected president, while the presidential candidate receiving the second-most votes was elected vice president. In cases where no individual won a vote from a majority of the electors, as well in cases where multiple individuals won a majority but tied each other for the most votes, the House of Representatives would hold a contingent election to select the president. In cases where multiple candidates tied for the second-most votes, the Senate would hold a contingent election to select the vice president. The first four presidential elections were conducted under these rules.
The experiences of the 1796 and 1800 presidential elections spurred legislators to amend the presidential election process, requiring each member of the Electoral College to cast one electoral vote for president and one electoral vote for vice president. Under the new rules, a contingent election is still held by the House of Representatives if no candidate wins a presidential electoral vote from a majority of the electors, but there is no longer any possibility of multiple candidates winning presidential electoral votes from a majority of electors. The Twelfth Amendment also contained other provisions, lowering the number of candidates eligible to be selected by the House in a presidential contingent election from five to three, establishing that the Senate would hold a contingent election for vice president if no candidate won a majority of the vice presidential electoral vote, and providing that no individual constitutionally ineligible to the office of president would be eligible to serve as vice president.
The three parts of the Executive Branch include the President, the Cabinet and the independent agencies. The Vice President is the stand in for the president in ceremonial roles. He also serves as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate. Several amendments have been added to the U.S. Constitution to further define the powers of the president. Among them are the Twelfth Amendment (1804), which provides the procedure for electing the President and the Vice-President. The Twentieth Amendment (1933) changed the presidential inauguration from March to January. The Twentieth Second Amendment (1951) limits the number of terms a president can serve to two terms. The Twenty Fifth Amendment (1967) established procedures to address vacancy in either the presidential or vice-presidential offices. The Presidential Succession Act (1947) defines the officials who can succeed to the presidency after the Vice-President.
