1. The 12th Amendment of the Constitution was implemented after the election of 1800. Why? Jefferson and Burr had the same number of electoral votes as President; Adams and Jefferson had the same number of electoral votes as President; Burr, Jefferson, and Adams had the same number of electoral votes for President; Everyone turned down the vice presidency.
2. The House of Representatives have selected the President once since the election of 1804. Who was the winner in that election? John Quincy Adams, with 84 electoral votes of the 131 for a majority; Martin Van Buren, with 41 electoral votes of the 131 for a majority; Andrew Jackson, with 99 electoral votes of the 131 for a majority; Jefferson, with 84 electoral votes of the 131 for a majority.
3. Only one President was elected to non-consecutive terms. Who was it? Teddy Roosevelt; Grover Cleveland; Franklin Roosevelt; John Q. Adams.
4. One President left the White House and, nine years later, became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Who was he? Teddy Roosevelt; John Q. Adams; Martin Van Buren; William Howard Taft.
5. What was the worst finish in history for an incumbent president running for reelection? Millard Fillmore in 1856, with 21.6 percent of the vote; Herbert Hoover in 1932, with 39.7 percent of the vote; William Howard Taft in 1912, with 23.2 percent of the popular vote; Martin Van Buren in 1848, with 10.1 percent of the vote.
6. Zachary Taylor won the 1848 election with 1,361,394 votes. He would have had one more, but: Taylor didn’t vote for himself; Taylor’s son, Richard, repudiated the Whig Party and joined his father’s opponent, Democrat Lewis Cass; in a silent act of “gentlemanliness,” Taylor later disclosed, he’d cast his vote for former President Martin Van Buren, the nominee of the Free Soil Party; Taylor’s running mate, Millard Fillmore, was unable to reach his polling place in East Aurora, N.Y., on Election Day.
7. Following the election of his successor, President James Buchanan reportedly said, “My dear sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland [his estate in Pennsylvania], you are a happy man indeed.” To whom was he speaking? Ulysses S. Grant; Abraham Lincoln; Franklin Pierce; none of the above.
8. What did Thomas Jefferson do that resulted in many people proclaiming him an infidel? Rewrote the Bible; did not believe in God; claimed Jesus was not the Son of God; did not attend church.
9. In the 1968 presidential election, there were three major contenders: Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace. Nixon and Humphrey tied with 43 percent of the direct vote and Wallace had 13.5 percent. Who finally became President? Hubert Humphrey; Dwight Eisenhower; Gerald Ford; Richard Nixon.
10. Which candidate left the Republican primary race in December 2011 to run for the Libertarian Party nomination? Fred Karger; Jon Huntsman; Gary Johnson; Ron Paul
Answers: 1. Jefferson and Burr had the same number of electoral votes as President, but the election exposed a flaw in the original Constitution. Members of the Electoral College could only vote for president; each elector could vote for two candidates, and the person who received the second largest number of votes during the balloting became vice-president. The Republicans had planned for one of the electors to abstain from casting his second vote for Aaron Burr, which would have led to Jefferson receiving one electoral vote more than Burr. The plan, however, resulted in a tied electoral vote between Jefferson and Burr. The election was given to the outgoing House of Representatives, which elected Jefferson. 2. John Quincy Adams, with 84 electoral votes of the 131 for a majority. Only once since then has the House of Representatives chosen the President. 3. Grover Cleveland. Barack Obama is our 44th president, but there actually have only been 43 presidents: Cleveland was elected for two nonconsecutive terms and is counted twice, as our 22nd and 24th president. 4. William Howard Taft. Nine years after leaving the presidency, Taft was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court. 5. William Howard Taft in 1912, with 23.2 percent of the popular vote. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the election handily, but Taft ended up splitting the Republican vote with former President Teddy Roosevelt, running as the candidate of the Bull Moose Party. 6. Taylor didn’t vote for himself. A 40-year Army veteran known as “Old Rough and Ready,” Taylor had never run for office and, was not even registered to vote. 7. Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Buchanan returned home to Lancaster, Pa. and retired from public life. He died in 1868. 8. Rewrote the Bible. 9. Jimmy Carter. Reagan tried again in the 1980 presidential election and won, beating incumbent Jimmy Carter. 10. Gary Johnson, who served as Governor of New Mexico from 1995-2003. He left the Republican primaries because he was excluded from most of the televised debates.
Sources: Infoplease.com; Yahoo.com; Factmonster.com; Peoplequiz.com; AARP.com; Funtrivia.com.